


you got me with your beat of love

by dustywords



Series: we work in the shadows [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, i felt really bad writing it pls don't send me hate mail, major (canine) character death, the john wick au you didn't know you wanted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:47:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustywords/pseuds/dustywords
Summary: Sameen Shaw is not having a good week: her wife dies in a car crash, a few days later someone breaks into her home to kill her dog and steal her 1969 Ford Mustang BOSS 429--and while she is busy righting some of these wrongs, she finds out that her retirement from her criminal past five years ago might have been built on a lie . . .| A John Wick AU with a twist |
Relationships: Root | Samantha Groves/Sameen Shaw
Series: we work in the shadows [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072679
Comments: 25
Kudos: 71





	1. start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedorkone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedorkone/gifts).



> dani, here it is! the long overdue and promised gift--ENJOY!
> 
> i recently watched all three john wick movies and all i could think about is how shaw is basically poi's john wick. you can take a guess how this little fic came to be. it's not going to be an exact rewrite of the movie, i've changed certain things, added a twist and well, you'll see. next chapters will be out tomorrow and on saturday!
> 
> tw: this fic (just like the movie "john wick") would get a spot on doesthedogdie dot com, so please be aware of that. (that part is not graphic, i promise!)
> 
> and no, it's not a mistake that there is no "major character death"-tag warning despite what the beginning might try to tell you. . .
> 
> also, no beta so be prepared to find mistakes.
> 
> title taken from "think" by kaleida.
> 
> happy holidays!

Shaw stares at the coffin that has been lowered into the hole in the ground, the rain glistening on the shiny surface. She picked a polished walnut wood casket, not sure if that’s even something her wife would’ve liked. They never talked about the ‘death do us part’ section of their vows in any serious way—hilarious, considering Shaw’s previous profession that she'd left behind.

Still, she thinks that Sam would’ve liked it.

Shaw stands under her open black umbrella, the rain falling down harder than before and she barely notices the other guests leaving for their cars. She spends a moment longer here, lingers at the grave of her wife who just left for some small groceries and never made it back due to some drunk fucker running a red light—it seems a small mercy that both died immediately. Shaw had barely listened to the brief report some medic gave her about the fire both cars caught.

Facts don’t change the outcome.

It’s truly lucky for the driver he died as well. 

Shaw takes a deep breath. Fixes the coffin one last time with her stare. Feels nothing other than the cold seeping into her bones from the fresh fall weather and the icy breeze pushing the pouring rain sideways. Her slacks are beginning to soak up the rainwater.

Their dog, Bear, is dutifully keeping her company and only tugs at his leash when he shakes off some of the rainwater that has fallen on his fur. He appears more demure than he usually is. She wonders if dogs can feel sadness too or if Bear feels what she feels—just an uncomfortable emptiness that is vaguely painful if she thinks too long about it.

She still ponders on it when they both are on their way to her dark gray 1969 Ford Mustang BOSS 429. They cross the street and are almost there when someone stops in front of her.

“Cole,” Shaw says, blinking in surprise. She hadn’t seen him among the other guests, but of course, Cole is better than that. And truth to be told, Shaw had not scanned her surroundings as careful as her old self would have, but seeing as this had been her wife’s funeral she hadn’t expected to see someone from her old life to pay a visit.

For five years she had been allowed to live in peace as she had requested and seeing someone familiar on the day of her wife’s funeral feels . . . eerily like some bad omen. Shaw tries to dismiss this notion as soon as it enters her mind.

“My condolences,” Cole says and it sounds genuine and heartfelt. Cole had always been the compassionate type, a rare thing to encounter in that world. “Can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now,” he adds, looking down at his shoes for a moment. He notices Bear and gives the Belgian Malinois a little, sad smile.

 _I feel nothing_ , Shaw almost says. “Thanks,” she says out loud instead. “You still on active duty?” she goes on, aware that there are still some people around, even if they’re too far away to listen in. Better safe than sorry—and so talking in code it is.

“Had to take a break for a bit, a mission fucked up my lower back real bad,” Cole plays along, giving her a chagrined smile. “When I heard. . .well, I wanted to make sure you’re alright, is all.”

“I’m fine.”

“Must be hard to lose the person that made you leave this . . . life behind,” Cole slowly notes, tilting his head a little.

Shaw shrugs, feeling the telltale prickle of discomfort on her neck. She is a very private person and that people know about her reason for leaving this life behind is bad enough—Cole alluding to the fact that her retirement has now lost its purpose is almost insulting. Almost. “It was an accident,” she says, feeling tired of these words. She’s said them often these past few days while organizing this funeral and getting Sam’s things in order.

“Was it worth it?”

Shaw doesn’t have to think long about it. “Yeah.”

She remembers her wife’s smile the day they brought Bear home. She remembers how they met at one of the hotels Shaw had been send to keep tabs on a target, how a room mix-up has lead to Shaw at first being very annoyed with the brunette who couldn’t wink to save her life, but eventually warmed up enough to go as far as to drop out of her old life entirely.

She can’t even say why.

Just that Samantha Groves had allowed her to experience something that she imagines people mean when their partner makes them feel ‘at home’—to lose that is . . . rough.

Cole nods a few times, unaware of the growing turmoil in Shaw’s head. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. It was nice seeing you again, Shaw.”

Shaw simply nods, watching him leave with a slight limp. She wonders if his injury means that he’s now only taking sniper contracts. She has no doubt that this is Cole’s way of working around his work accident.

Ignoring how heavy her chest feels she opens the door for Bear before she climbs into her car herself and drives away without looking back at her wife’s grave on more time.

*

At their home, she talks to the guests, eats a little, drinks some and stares a lot out of their wide windows. Most guests here are Sam’s friends, only brief acquaintances to Shaw who spent most of her days working in the city, teaching self-defense classes and going back home right after. It gave her a good outlet for her skills and forced her to stay fit, but it had been a somewhat isolating way of life—by design. Shaw had been very careful not to run into old contacts and acquaintances.

It’s one of the reasons why she was so adamant to leave the city behind and buy a modern big house somewhere more remote. Not that it had been hard to convince Sam of that idea.

Shaw’s lips twitch when she remembers their chaotic move to that house, with boxes everywhere. She’d never seen herself to be the domestic type, and she still really isn’t, but experiencing something else than the fast-lived, tense atmosphere of her old life feels all the more precious now that it is gone.

At least Bear is still here, reminding her of it, allowing her to still feel close to the only person that truly meant something to her. She looks down and finds him seated next to her, also gazing out into the growing darkness outside. “Good boy,” she whispers to him, not sure why.

Bear looks up at her and seems to smile.

She smiles back.

  
*

After saying goodbye to the guests, Shaw flops down on the couch with another glass of scotch neat and watches Bear jump up on the couch, a bunny slipper in his mouth. A gift from Sam, identical to the silly bunny slippers she insisted on wearing.

Shaw finishes the drink in one gulp, looking away from the slipper between Bear’s sharp white teeth.

She takes a shower and goes to bed.

*

She can’t sleep and it’s not because of the rain. Her bed feels too big for just one person and one dog.

*

The next morning.

“Shit,” she curses, realizing that she’s out of dog kibble. With all the stress of organizing the funeral and the wake, Shaw’s forgotten to check on Bear’s food and that’s why he’s now eating cereals with her. He doesn’t seem to mind. She puts his food on her grocery list, cancels via email another week of classes with the excuse of needing a break. Her boss is way more understanding than he should be and Shaw puts the phone away before the urge to start shit grows too strong.

After her modest breakfast and a cup of black coffee she takes Bear into her Mustang and drives to the closest grocery store in that small town that is closest to her home. On her way back, she stops at a gas station. With sun glasses on she gets out, and walks around the car to fill up the gas tank again. Bear is watching her through his open window on the passenger side, blinking against the sun with his tongue out. She might throw some ball in the garden to power him out, and to get her mind away from trying to find out whether that drunk fucker made it or not.

Another car stops, a 2014 BMW M5 in black. Plain compared to her car, but the Russian rap song is enough to make Shaw more aware of her surroundings. At first, nothing happens. She finishes filling up her gas tank, uses her credit card to pay and is almost back on her side of her Mustang when a young lanky man whistles in her direction and approaches her.

“Nice car,” he says with a grin. “Is it a 1970 Ford Mustang BOSS 429?” He’s wearing the hood of his hoodie, but she can tell that he has very short hair, military style cut and the almost vanished lilt in his diction that betrays his Russian roots. He doesn’t seem very familiar, but the accent—barely there as it is—could be a strong hint as to why this guy rubs her the wrong way. That, and he is bothering her for now good reason.

“No,” Shaw says slowly, old instincts kicking in. She could use the hose attached to the nozzle and wrap it around his neck before he could yell for help to his two friends that she’s keenly aware of. They are refueling the BMW, but both men are watching their friend interact with her, music still playing loud in the background.

“Hmm, could’ve sworn it was a 1970. A 1969, then,” he corrects himself, obviously not deterred by Shaw’s reaction. He seems eager to flex his knowledge about cars. “How much would you want for this beautiful car? Money is not an issue,” he says, giving her winning smile that he probably assumes to be charming.

Instead, he comes across as an arrogant dickhead who doesn’t get a hint. “It’s not for sale,” Shaw tells him, no longer trying to hide how little time she has for some idiot trying to pry this car from her.

His mood shifts a little. “Oh, come on. Don’t be like that, I mean I would treat her very well,” he says and looks at the Mustang but . . . Shaw can tell the double-meaning here. Not only is he almost half her age if she had to guess, she’s clearly not into immature asshats bothering women about their cars at a fucking gas station.

“Your friends are waiting,” Shaw says with a nod towards the two at the BMW, still looking towards her car. It’s her last attempt to solve it peacefully. His friends waiting for him seem to be on the lookout for . . . something. But whatever it is, the dude that has chatted her up doesn’t give it to them. Instead, he finally drops his act and his smile, fixes her with one last petulant glare, before he walks away, all the while cursing in Russian under his breath. He is not aware that Shaw understands him perfectly well and she could let him know that—but why should she waste her time on someone like him?

Shaw leaves the gas station behind and soon forgets the encounter on her way home.

*

Sadly, the three idiots did not forget her and decide to pay her a visit that night. It’s telling how much she has slipped into this domestic comfort zone when these amateurs manage to not only break-in without her noticing in time, but they also manage to best her in her own fucking home.

Bear tries to protect her—

And fails.

*

When Shaw wakes up, she’s in pain. Her head hurts, her ribs hurt and more than anything, her heart hurts. It’s not helping to wake up and with a motionless Bear lying right in front of her on the hard wooden floor. She closes her eyes and for a moment she can’t think. For a moment, the world stops.

Then, she takes a few deep breaths, rolls onto her back and slowly starts to get up. “Fuck,” she whispers, seeing double for a bit. These three fuckers did a number on her. Her right side hurts, she’s got a horizontal cut on the back of her nose and a scrape on her right temple. Both stopped bleeding hours ago, dry blood caked on cheek and chin. She feels bruised and battered and hates it. She hates how looking at Bear feels like being stabbed.

She blinks against the burning in her eyes and all she can think about is how her last remaining connection to Sam has been taken from her—just a few days after her death.

Because that fucker and his two friends, the same ones she met at the gas station decided to break into her house, rough her up and kill her dog to make a fucking point, or to—

Her head snaps up.

No. 

And then she is on the move, hobbling towards her garage. With trembling hands she unlocks the door and finds only Sam’s bike in there—her car had been totaled in the crash. And her own parking spot, right next to Sam’s spot should be her Ford Mustang.

There are only dark tire tracks on the concrete floor.

Shaw curses with a hiss.

With blaring nostrils she opens her garage door and inspects the tracks outside. The three fuckers had left in a hurry, no doubt feeling proud of their actions.

It’s clear that they have no idea who she is.

No one steals Sameen Shaw’s car and kills her dog and lives long to boast about it.

She’s left this life for her now dead wife.

There is nothing keeping her from dipping briefly back in, just long enough to deal with these clowns. She returns back inside, closes her garage and starts planning.

First, she needs to clean-up her house and give Bear his last resting place. His favorite spot was underneath the oak tree in her garden. Next, she’ll have to take a shower, get dressed and call a cab. There’s only one mechanic in NYC that might know where these cunts took her fucking car. And last but not least, she’ll have to open up her weapon stash that she’d covered in the basement with some solid concrete. Maybe not right away, but at some point it’ll be inevitable. Her past had fit neatly into a heavy, compact box and she had not expected to ever open it again, and not this soon.

But Sam is dead, so is Bear, and really what else is there to do other than to hunt down the cunts that took the last two remaining things she loved more than her own life?

Shaw gets to work.

*

Meanwhile, the three men that stole Shaw’s car arrive at Dominic Besson’s car shop. Mikhael “Laskey” Lesnichy and his friends, Raf and Titus, are hollering about something, making Dominic stop stirring his coffee. He watches them get out of the familiar 1969 Ford Mustang BOSS 429, still laughing about something that Dominic doesn’t care to find out.

“Dom, my man. Look at this beauty!” Laskey calls and gently touches the roof of the car. “Just got it, what do you think? I need some papers and plates for her.” He grins, as if his request for this particular car is not one of his poorer ideas. Judging him by his own actions, no one would be able to tell who his father is—a pity.

Dominic slowly puts his steaming mug of coffee down and flexes his shoulder muscles. His men stop what they’re doing to see what is going, the tension in his shop growing by the minute.

Carl Elias’ illegitimate son has just brought Sameen Shaw’s car into the shop and expects praise, demands papers that would make this stolen car his. But, Dominic knows his place, knows the penalty for disrespecting Carl Elias’ offspring, so he starts to play along. He stops in front of Laskey, a head taller than the boy and nods towards the car. “Where did you get it?” he asks, calm and collected.

“Stole it from some uptight rich bitch,” Laskey says with a laugh and his two idiot friends join him, spitting out some Russian vulgarities. “You should’ve seen her house. And her garage is big enough to house several cars. I mean she had a freaking Yamaha YZF-R6 in there!”

“So you just took the car?” Dominic asks, growing more and more nervous but manages to hide it.

“Don’t forget her fucking dog!” Laskey’s taller friend Raf, calls, and all three start to laugh again. “He got Titus’ arm but he didn’t stand a chance,” Raf guffaws, sharing a high-five with Laskey. Titus looks less happy about it and Dominic just now notices how his arm is in a makeshift sling underneath his leather jacket, the empty sleeve hanging down at the side. 

Dominic feels proud of his calm demeanor. “You killed her dog?” he asks, still pretending not to know what is going on. His voice sounds even friendly, but he can tell that his men around him—still not working on the several cars standing in the shop—are waiting for the inevitable point of no return. Maybe some of them are starting to put things together as well. There’s honestly only one woman who owns such a car in the area.

“Yeah, we killed her stupid dog just to let her know what a cunt she was. I mean, I asked her to sell the car but she said no, to me, _Carl Elias’ son_ ,” Laskey boasts, lifting his arms and receiving cheers from his two mates. “You got a problem with that, Besson? You suddenly a representative from fucking PETA?”

Dominic has to get them out his shop. He clears his throat, waits for Laskey to shut up. Then, “I can’t give you papers for this car,” he finally says, crossing his arms. He knows that he is now showing off with his muscles, but this boy in front of him needs to understand that he may be Carl Elias’ ungrateful brat, but he can’t just steal Sameen Shaw’s car and expect to keep it.

(Or live to tell about it much longer, but that’s a different story, Dominic thinks and keeps it to himself.)

“What?” Laskey looks at him as if Dominic has lost his mind, his good mood suddenly gone. “What are you talking about? You’re working for my old man, he owns this shop and y’all work for him!” The arrogance in his voice matches the expression in his pale eyes.

Dominic has heard enough. “What did you just say?”

“You can’t just refuse my demands, I’m—”

Dominic doesn’t let him finish.

“What the fuck!” Laskey yells, holding his bleeding nose. His friends look both surprised and worried at the same time. Maybe it’s because Dominic knows that at the end of the day the men working for him in this shop are going to pick him first, before they start to worry about Carl Elias’ influence in the city.

And it seems that Laskey starts to understand that as well.

Dominic adjusts his shirt and works some tension out of his neck. “Get out of my shop, boy.”

“My father will hear of this, asshole!”

“Good,” Dominic says and watches with some brittle sense of accomplishment how the boys climb into Sameen Shaw’s car and back out of his shop with screaming tires. One of his men has the foresight to immediately close the main garage door and Dominic simply makes a circling hand motion. “Back to work,” he tells them, takes his mug and decides to go to his little office room with the large window to ponder on what to do next.

Finally, he decides to dial a number he hasn’t used in five fucking years.

*

Shaw takes the cab to Dominic’s shop when it’s already dark and rainy again. She slips into the main garage building and nods at the guy who’s letting her in, noticing with some satisfaction that her name still carries some weight, even after five years of retirement.

Dominic is in his office, two glasses of whisky in front of him. He smiles a tense little smile when she approaches him. “Shaw,” he says, lifting one glass towards her.

She takes it. “Dominic.”

“I’m sorry about your loss,” he says next, taking his own glass in his hands.

Shaw wonders how everyone has heard of that—it’s as if her retirement has truly perished with her wife in that burning pile of cars. She simply nods and drinks to that.

“Well then,” he says and follows her example. After a moment of easy silence between them, they both sit down and Dominic starts to play with a ballpoint pen, swinging it back and forth between his index and middle finger, from time to time even drumming on the surface of his desk. “Heard your car got stolen,” he says slowly, watching her reaction.

She smiles. “They were here, huh?”

“Punched the kid right in his stupid face,” Dominic admits freely, a smile tugging at his full lips. “They were here some two hours ago.” Before he can add anything else, the black rotary phone starts to ring.

Shaw lifts a brow and watches how Dominic takes the call.

“ _My son told me an interesting story today_ ,” Carl Elias calm voice drifted towards her, ever the smooth talker even in his anger. Skipping the greeting etiquette is a warning sign on its own. “ _His voice was a little nasal, probably because you decided to punch him. Are you out of your mind? Have you forgotten your place in my ecosystem?_ ”

“No, Sir. But he stole a car,” Dominic replies, looking straight at Shaw. “And killed a dog.”

Ah, so the fucker boasted with that too. Shaw clenches her right hand into a fist under the table.

“ _So? Isn’t every other car in your fucking car shop stolen? Are you a cop all of the sudden_? _And what the fuck should I care about some dead puppy?_ ”

“Sir, I couldn’t care less that he stole a car, but . . . it’s who he stole it from you should be worried about,” Dominic says in the most polite tone she’s ever heard him use. Shaw can’t help but lean back while she witnesses the show.

“ _I’m all ears, dear Dominic_ ,” Elias says on the other end, and he has that peculiar talent of sounding ever so kind, when in reality he’s probably instructing his men already to torch Dominic’s place. It’s probably the reason why Dominic is so fucking polite in the first place; he knows that his life and work are in danger.

“He stole Sameen Shaw’s car and killed her dog, just a few days after her wife’s death,” Dominic says and waits.

The clock in his office tick-tocks louder than before.

For several seconds, nothing comes from the other end. And then: “ _. . . oh_.” The call is disconnected right after.

Dominic puts the handset back down and looks at Shaw. “I guess you should go back home. He will try to call you.”

“You don’t happen to have a car lying around, do you?”

Dominic smiles and gets up. “Some poor fellow can’t pay his debt to me, so I suppose I am now the rightful owner of his car. A 1970 Chevelle SS in dark green, how does that sound?”

Shaw smiles. “You know me so well,” she says and catches the car keys in one fluid motion. “Thanks, Dominic.”

“You’re very welcome, Shaw. And . . .” He stops there and looks conflicted for a bit, before he shrugs and goes on. “I’m not presuming to question you, you know that, but—Sameen, if you go after that brat and his friends, you will be back for good. Your retirement, poof. Gone.” He makes an explosion motion with his hand and looks Shaw straight in the eyes when he says it. He says it as if her retirement is still in place and just on the brink of collapsing.

Shaw smiles at him. “I know,” she admits in a low voice, and turns around to walk out of his office.

Oh, she knows that she’s being dragged back into the world she vowed to leave behind for good.

But she has a task to complete and for some reason she can’t find it in herself to feel bad about what she’s planning to do.

*

Shaw had not opened up her stash before she left her empty house to go to Dominic’s. But now, with a new car in possession—not as fun as her actual car, but it will do—and the knowledge that Elias has been warned, she has not much time. She knows that Elias will try to solve this mess before resorting to more drastic means and sending his goons after her. After all, if there is one person who should know what she’s capable of it’s Carl Elias himself.

She is busy breaking the concrete floor in her basement when her black rotary phone starts to ring. Her forehead is sweaty and her ribs hurt from the physical exertion, even her shoulder muscles burn from swinging the heavy sledgehammer several times until the ground has finally cracked. She puts the hammer down, reaches for the towel she brought and walks to the still ringing phone. Her gaze falls to the framed picture of her and Sam, a picture taken on their last vacation together.

Sam had no idea what kind of life Shaw had left for her. She’d never told her what things she’s hiding down here in this basement room. Officially she has used it as her workout room, but the rotary phone and the heavy box lying under the broken fragments of her concrete floor tell the full story.

Shaw picks up the phone and waits.

“ _Sameen Shaw_ ,” Carl Elias smiles into his phone, voice friendly as ever, as if he had called an old friend to ask how they’ve been. “ _I didn’t think I would ever have to dial this phone number again,_ ” he goes on, clearly striving for an amiable tone. “ _I’ve heard that my son has . . . caused some unpleasant trouble_ ,” he continues, as if his fucking son had trampled some non-existent flowers in her garden.

Shaw has trouble not slamming the phone receiver back into its handle. She could, but she wants to know what else he is going to say.

“ _I’m certain we can come to an agreement like civilized people. After all, we’ve known each other for so long, and I did support your wish to retire, if you remember, quite avidly. I’m sure, you can forgive a young, inexperienced man like my son the mistake he—_ ”

Shaw can’t take it anymore. She hangs up, wipes her hands and gets back to collecting her past from the box she’d just unearthed. Not even a Carl Elias can stop her now.

They killed her fucking dog and stole her car.

What did he expect to happen? That he can throw some money at the problem and make it disappear? That one call to her will make her anger disappear? That she will nod and agree like all the brownnosers around him?

It’s almost funny.

Shaw retrieves her gun collection, takes out all the gold coins she has kept after her retirement (the real currency in her old world) and leaves the mess behind.

*

On the other end of the abruptly ended phone call, Carl Elias is putting his own phone receiver down and rubs his forehead, before he takes his glasses off and starts cleaning them. He can feel a headache growing behind his left temple, and the tension in his shoulders has climbed up to his neck. Ever since the call to Dominic he has not spend a calm minute.

Yelling at his son felt good for a brief second or two, slapping him repeatedly for every attempt to interrupt him has eased some of his growing restlessness, but in the end his boy simply still doesn’t understand what he has done. To Mikhael they’re all overreacting because of a stolen car—

And a killed dog.

Elias sighs.

“Did she say anything, boss?” his right-hand man and most loyal supporter, Anthony Marconi, better known as Scarface to most, asks. Dressed in his usual dark suit, he appears to be more calm than Elias.

“No,” Elias admits with another deep sigh. “Gather some men and have them tie this up. I don’t want this to become a bigger problem than it already is.”

“Boss, you know that—”

“What else am I supposed to do? Slap a ribbon on my idiot son’s head and personally drop him off at Sameen Shaw’s house? Maybe bring a loaded gun she can use to kill him, as well?” He didn’t mean to raise his voice but now he feels like some yelling might do him some good. He takes another deep breath and finds his countenance again. “Anthony, she will go after him and she has to be stopped.”

Anthony, to his credit, doesn’t flinch when faced with his superior’s anger. It’s one of his best qualities, to remain calm even when Elias himself is losing his temper. Which happens rarely—but this is a rare occasion. _Baba Yaga_ has awoken and is after his son. “I will make sure to pick the best,” Anthony promises with a bow and then leaves him alone with his uneasy anger.

He won’t call it panic.

But deep down, he knows better.

Sameen Shaw is one of the best players in this game and she is very, very angry.

Elias fixes himself a drink.

*

Shaw lies in her bed, wide awake and waits. She’s in her PJs, just in case someone has been watching her through the big windows of her house. She knows that Elias will mobilize some men and send them over. Most likely he’ll do it at night, hoping that she falls asleep in her bed and poses an easy target.

Elias should know fucking better.

But his options are limited and his son’s situation is quite dire—he has to know that Shaw won’t simply sleep on it and feel better in the morning. He must know that the moment his son broke into her house, killed Bear and took off with her car he made it personal.

And she can’t let something like that slide.

It doesn’t take long until she can hears someone messing with her lock on her door. They must’ve taken out her alarm system first, and judging by the footsteps there’s around one dozen men creeping in and around her house.

Twelve against one.

Shaw smiles.

Elias could’ve at least made this challenging.

“Amateur,” Shaw whispers to herself in the dark and gets up.

Clad in nothing but her dark gray jogging pants and a plain black t-shirt she leaves her bedroom with bare feet and sneaks through her own empty hallway. She has a gun tucked into the waistband of her pants, loaded and ready to be used. It doesn’t take long for her to run into the first pair of buffoons looking for her. For a split second she can feel the adrenaline high of returning to her old job. Disarming the first idiot with two clever hits and using his gun to shoot his partner in the chest and head, before shooting him in quick succession in the same manner happens in just a few seconds. She’s aware that the noise will draw the others to her current location, but she’s not feeling anything but the thrill of doing what she’s best at: taking out people in quick, precise ways.

It feels good to be back.

She finishes the rest of the team off in a similar fashion, painting her walls with dark red splotches and breaking her glass dinner table by throwing one of the goons over her shoulder and letting him crash through the glass, using the split-second of confusion to shoot the other two with well-aimed shots. Then, after calmly reloading, she finishes off the last remaining guy using one of her bookshelves as cover. The others found their death in a less brazen fashion, but it had been enough to kill them quickly.

Shaw breathes heavily and is about to turn towards her basement when her door bell rings.

She keeps her gun in her hand and walks up to her door.

“Shaw,” officer Lionel Fusco greets her. He’s in his uniform and is holding his hat in his hands.

“Lionel,” she greets back, only half-heartedly positioning herself in his field of view to hide the body right in the center of her hallway.

Fusco sees it anyway. “There’s been some noise complaints from your neighbors,” he informs her, craning his neck a little more. “Didn’t know you were workin’ again.”

“I’m not.” Not really, this is a personal thing, after all. “Time for some spring cleaning,” she tells him, trying to tell him that this is a temporary break in her retirement, one that she wouldn’t have taken if it weren’t for the assholes who killed her dog and took her car.

“Well then,” Fusco says and hums politely. “I’ll leave you to it. Night, Shaw.”

“Night, Lionel.” Shaw closes the door and blows out some air.

She has a call to make.

Back in her basement, she reaches for her black phone. “Hi, this is Sameen Shaw. Yeah, you heard that right. I want to make a dinner reservation for twelve people.” Then she hangs up.

And waits.

*

Leon Tao and his crew arrive some twenty minutes later. “Good to see you, Shaw,” Leon says, smiling nervously at her before nodding to his men to get to it. They’re busy for over two hours with wrapping up the corpses, carrying them into their van, wiping floors and walls as best as they can, and removing bullets from her walls, furniture and wooden floorboards.

Shaw hands him a few gold coins at the end of a job well done and nods at him. “Thanks.”

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Leon Tao says, reverently stacking the coins from one hand into the other, before putting them away. “Until next time.”

Shaw mock-salutes him and returns into her house, closing the door after her.

Elias has made his first move and now it’s time to make hers.

*

First, she packs some clothes, her old work clothes, and all the equipment she might need. Once she’s done loading it into her car, she drives to the Manhattan Continental hotel, the only place where she will be able to make some plans in peace and come up with a strategy. She knows enough to track down Elias’ dumb son and friends, but she has to be smart about it. She wants to get it done _right_. That rules out the possibility of using a sniper rifle. She wants to be up close when she finishes them off, one by one.

She gets her things out of the 1970 Chevelle SS and hands the keys to the friendly valet that offered her his help the moment she stepped out of her car. Then, she walks into the building and notes that not only does the façade look differently, the inside seems to have gone through a make-over as well. It looks more luxurious than before. The hotel lobby is quite full, but thankfully the guest at the reception is done and leaves when Shaw draws closer.

John Reese is busy typing something into his computer and lifts his head when Shaw places a single gold coin on the countertop made of polished mahogany wood and pushes it towards him. “One room, please.”

“Sameen Shaw,” Reese smiles, doing a poor job of hiding his pleasant surprise of seeing her back in this very hotel lobby. “Welcome back to the Continental. I wasn’t expecting your return so soon after your retirement,” he adds, clearly trying to figure out what the hell she’s doing here.

Or maybe he already knows what happened and tries to figure out if she’s willing to share or keep it to herself. He should know her better than that. “I’m on a personal matter here,” is all she tells him.

“Personal,” he repeats in his unmistakable low voice, not the least surprised. “I see. Shall I notify the Manager of your arrival?”

“Is it still the same manager? Your building seems to look . . . different from what I remember.”

“Still the same, yes,” Reese confirms. “Just invested into some cosmetic renovations, to go with the times.”

Shaw misses the old-timey flair but keeps it to herself. “Tell him I’ll find him once I brought my stuff into my room.”

Reese’s eyes twinkle with amusement. “I’m sure you will. Anything else?”

“No, that’s it.”

“Good.” Reese hands her a key card and gives her his usual thin, almost ironic smile that has some hint of genuine joy behind it. “Enjoy your stay at the Continental, Miss Shaw,” he says in his overly formal tone, mirth coloring his words.

Shaw simply nods at him and makes her way to the elevators. Once in her room, she stores her bags underneath the bench at the foot of her bed, washes her face, and gets dressed into her old work clothes: a bullet proof dark suit, custom made to fit her body form perfectly and to provide her with the optimal defense against most projectiles. She’s not about to prowl through the city just yet so she leaves her bulletproof vest and her weapons in her bag. There is a very strict no-violence-policy on the hotel grounds in place and she still has her bare hands should the need arise—which she doubts. The Manager has a very firm and strict no-bullshit policy on that front—those who break these rules don’t tend to live very long.

Shaw makes her way down to the basement, following the muffled sound of deep bass and electro music. The underground bar of the hotel hasn’t changed much. Green neon light panels at the bar, a comfy atmosphere and the same room structure greet her once she makes her way through the room. She nods at some familiar faces, Claire Mahoney’s among them, and finally reaches the almost empty table at the far end of the club.

Harold Finch is sitting alone at the table, busy reading the newspaper. When he hears her approach, he lifts his gaze and smiles at her—with some reservation in it. “Miss Shaw,” he greets her, motioning for her to sit down. “I was surprised to hear from Mister Reese that you are back in my humble little establishment.”

Shaw wouldn’t call the former library building a ‘humble little establishment’, not with the added levels on top of it, but she keeps that to herself. Instead, she picks up the cocktail menu from the table and studies it briefly. It’s still the same after all these years. Some things don’t change around here. “Should we pretend you don’t know why I’m here or do we skip that part?” she asks, not looking away from the menu.

“Straight to the point as always,” Finch notes with some light amusement in his voice. “If I may, I’d recommend the 40 years old Highland Park single malt, neat.”

Shaw puts the menu down and simply nods.

Finch only has to look towards the bartender and then he directs his thoughtful gaze back in her direction. “Elias has put out a contract for you. With an exorbitant amount of money attached to it for someone allegedly in retirement,” he goes on, folding his newspaper.

Shaw crosses her arms. “Allegedly?”

“Well, you are here, are you not?” Finch points out, pushing his glasses back. “Word has it it’s because of a dead dog and a stolen car.”

“My dead dog and my stolen car.”

“I never said it wasn’t justified,” Finch amends. “Elias is already working against you as we speak. I do hope you did more than just getting your skeletons out of your basement closet and drive back into your past.” 

Shaw doesn’t even want to know how he knows about her basement hiding spot. Finch has this way of . . . knowing things. “I know what I’m doing.”

“So you are fully aware that by stepping into this very hotel, or even by spending your very first gold coins since five years, you are back from your retirement?”

“Temporarily. Don’t get used to my presence here.”

“I would never presume such a thing, Miss Shaw,” Finch tells her earnestly, folding his hands over the newspaper. A waitress appears at their table and places Shaw’s drink in front of her. “However, I must once again remind you that some might consider your retirement fully . . . cancelled.”

“They are welcome to tell it to my face,” Shaw smiles and takes a sip from the excellent whiskey.

Finch smiles back. “Welcome back, Miss Shaw.”

She empties her glass in reply and gets up. Then, she looks back at him. “Is Zoe Morgan still in town?”

“Where else would she be? You might want to talk to Reese about it, he will know where to find her.” It sounds like a joke that Shaw isn’t able to get.

She shrugs and is on her way back upstairs to the lobby.

*

When she mentions Zoe Morgan’s name to Reese, she sees the brief flicker of something in his eyes and it is enough to betray him. When the words “we are giving that relationship thing a go” leave his mouth, Shaw stares at him with a blank expression, not sure how to react to these news. Now, Finch’s words make way more sense. It is kind of the most hilarious thing Shaw’s heard all day since re-entering her old world.

“How did you do that?” she asks, barely able to contain her chuckles. “Wait, don’t tell me, it’s funnier that way.”

Reese gives her a deadpan look. “I liked you better quiet and brooding,” he tells her, pretending to be busy typing something. “Can I actually help you with something or was that all? I have an actual job to do,” he reminds her and pretends to be clicking on something.

“You look halfway there to be bored into a coma, Reese. Don’t you miss being more hands-on?”

“A desk job can be rewarding.”

“For the desk maybe.”

“You have a funny way of trying to get a favor out of me, Shaw.”

“Just tell me where Zoe is and I’ll be out of your hair,” she says, chancing a quick glance at his short, graying her.

He notices it and frowns. “As it happens, she’s staying in one of the penthouse suits,” Reese tells her.

Shaw wiggles her eyebrows. “So that’s why she’s dating you. Hotel discount.”

“Please, I have important work to do.” Reese picks up the not-ringing phone and pretends to take a call.

Shaw is still laughing inside the elevator, on her way to Zoe’s room.

Well, room is actually a too small word. It’s one of the few hotel apartments that are offered for very few, very influential guests. Zoe, while not a killer for hire, has some powerful ties to both the people under the table and above the table, that has her secured the treatment fit for a queen in her own right. She can end lives with just one phone call, and has done so in the past. She’s been also a huge help to Shaw in getting out of this world.

And now she’s back, knocking at Zoe’s door.

“Who’s there?” Zoe Morgan asks.

“Room service,” Shaw says and waits for the door to open.

Zoe looks at her, blinks, and shakes her head. “I could’ve sworn I worked for weeks on end to get you out of this place,” she notes, a small smile sneaking onto her lips. “Yet here you are only five years later.”

“A personal matter,” Shaw says before Zoe can actually ask.

“Widowhood not becoming you?” Zoe asks instead and steps aside, holding her room door wide open for her.

Shaw enters the suit and waits for Zoe to close the door and follow her into the spacious living room. “Let’s drop the act and tell me where Elias is keeping his dirt,” she says, looking around the room, vaguely impressed with how expensive everything is in here.

Zoe laughs darkly. “What, you just come in and waltz right back into your old life as if we didn’t move heaven and hell to get you away from all of this?”

“Elias’ good-for-nothing brat killed my dog and stole my car,” Shaw reminds her with a pointed look.

Zoe looks a little ashamed at that. “I’m sorry, you’re right,” she agrees and sits down on the dark green samite designer couch that probably costs as much as one month worth of rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. “Elias’ dirt, you say? I thought you want to go after his son.”

“I am,” Shaw says, sitting down in the armchair complimentary to the couch. Also samite. “But you know as well as I do that he put a contract out for me.”

“Just this morning, yes. $2 million, if I am not mistaken.”

Shaw almost asks when Zoe has been wrong about anything in recent times. “Who took it?”

“I’m not sure if I should tell you.”

“We can politely talk in circles or you could just tell me now.”

Zoe grins at her. “I missed this. Very well. An old friend of yours took it. And I know your list of friends is very short, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Shaw’s smile drops. “Cole,” she guesses.

Zoe nods. “Cole.”

Shaw doesn’t get angry, it’s part of this world. A contract is put out, someone takes that contract. Cole has as much a right to take that contract as anyone else. It’s actually good that someone fairly familiar took it—Shaw has a better chance of anticipating what could happen next, if Cole is even working against her in earnest. He might’ve taken the contract just to block it from others, less biased killers for hire.

Shaw clears her throat. “I need that address,” she repeats and takes three gold coins out to place them on the glass couch table in front of Zoe.

Zoe stares at the coins and then looks at Shaw again. “You aren’t even going to ask if I am willing to give that information?”

Shaw shrugs.

Zoe takes the coins and stands up. “Let me write it down for you.”

“That was easy.”

“His growing pile of dirt is posing a serious threat to my business model. The sooner it is torched, the better for me and my clients. He’s invaded my turf and I don’t take that likely.” Zoe returns from her desk with a folded piece of paper. “Here it is.”

“Thank you,” Shaw tells her, meaning it. She takes the paper and leaves the room.

Step one is complete.

*

Later, back in her room, Shaw memorizes the address Zoe has written down on that piece of paper and rips it apart into tiny fragments before collecting them all and flushing them down the toilet. While violence is prohibited on hotel grounds, breaking and entering doesn’t strictly fall under that rule and the last thing Shaw needs is Elias finding out that she knows where he keeps his secret stash of dirt and riches.

She remains in the bathroom after she’s done watching the swirling water and stares at her own reflection. She looks tired and when she touches the wound on her nose she squirms. It’s still tender.

She could try to figure out where Elias’ boy is right now, where he and his friends kill their time, but she decides that it works in her favor to keep them on their toes for a little while longer. No doubt has Elias mobilized most of his men to protect his son and keep him safe from harm’s way, no matter how foolish that notion is.

Eventually, Shaw will find him.

And finish it, once and for all.

*

She lies down and tries to fall asleep. She has a lot on her plate tomorrow, what with scouting the address she’s been given by Zoe and trying to hunt down Huey, Dewey, and Louie, but for some reason her mind keeps returning to the fact that Cole took a contract on her.

She can’t blame him. It’s a lot of cash for someone who might be considered no longer fit for this line of work. Hell, he’s probably sitting on some rooftop right now with his sniper and watching her.

And yet, she’s still breathing.

Her shoulders relax.

She closes her eyes.

And is almost asleep when a sniper shot misses her by mere centimeters.

A warning shot.

Shaw is out of her bed and cowering behind it, reaching for her gun with a steady hand. No violence in this hotel is like _the_ rule. And whoever just broke into her room doesn’t give a fuck.

With a brief moment to consider her options, Shaw decides to confront the intruder and once she’s out of her hiding spot she’s face to face with young Claire Mahoney, the rising youngster in their branch.

Shaw feels almost insulted that Elias would pay _another_ contract, this time closed and off table to see her finished off.

And out of all people, he picked someone still green behind their ears.

Mahoney attacks her from the front, using her quicker reflexes due to her younger age to dive underneath Shaw’s grabbing arms and hit her head first against her chest, pushing her back with the force of impact. One arm sneaks around her gun hand, making it impossible for her to fire the shot that would decide this fight. Instead, she wrestles her around, trying to get some leverage against her, maybe pin her somewhere to finish her off.

They stumble through the room, Shaw still at a slight disadvantage, only dressed in her PJs and her weapon useless while Mahoney manages to keep her hand holding it immobilized most of the time.

“You are supposed to be _the_ killer and yet, I find you here in your pajamas, barely able to keep up,” Mahoney chortles, followed by a scoff.

“Conducting business on hotel grounds is forbidden,” Shaw reminds her a little out of breath.

“Fuck the Manager,” Mahoney announces and gives her a fiendish smile.

Shaw headbutts her for that, uses the small pause in resistance to free herself and is about to use her gun, when someone else beats her to it, hitting Mahoney in her shoulder with the fired bullet. She hisses in pain and briefly stumbles, only to quickly exit the room, not even looking back.

Shaw would’ve assumed Cole who had used his sniper to warn her had done this, but the shot came from the wrong direction; and the gunshot had been clearly too close, fired within her room.

Someone else is in here.

Shaw slowly turns around, and a part of expects to see Reese there with his Glock 17, dressed in his usual dark suit with the white shirt, an easy smile on his lips, maybe some dry comment about how she’s getting old and sloppy or asking her if he should get the room service for her.

Instead, her very much not dead wife is standing right there in the middle of her trashed hotel room, gun still in her hand.

“Hello, sweetie.”


	2. middle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my writing will never come close to the action scene of the cinematic masterpiece that is the red circle sequence in "john wick"--but just imagine shaw doing all that cool stuff that happens in that scene.
> 
> enjoy!

Shaw can’t remember the last time she had been this speechless in her life.

Samantha Groves—or whoever the fuck this woman in front of her is, is standing in Shaw’s hotel room as if it isn’t weird for her to a) know of this hotel and b) shoot someone with a gun in that very hotel, forbidden as it is.

Wait. With one of her _two_ guns. Shaw is staring at the second gun in the woman’s hand as if it was a third hand.

What the fuck is going on?

The woman looks at her with a fond smile, as if her faked death has no meaning, as if pretending to have died in a gruesome car crash where she allegedly perished at the site of said crash is the normal thing to do to get out of a marriage. There is some reservation in it, as well. For one, she is still holding both guns, and while she’s not actively aiming at Shaw with them, she is also not making any moves to put them away just yet.

Shaw doesn’t reach for her gun. “I paid four thousand dollars for your fucking coffin,” is the first thing that comes to her mind to say out loud. Her voice is something between bored and disbelieving. 

The woman tilts her head and it’s such a Sam thing to do that—“It was lovely. Walnut wood was a good choice.”

Of course, apparently this woman not only faked her death, but somehow also attended her own fucking funeral. Probably to laugh at Shaw. “Anything else you got to add?” Shaw asks, bitterness lacing her words. She is aware that Cole might be still watching all of this, or perhaps he’s already on his way home. She hopes desperately it is the latter because while no one in her old world seems to know what her wife looked like, it is a matter of time until someone might figure it out—if they really wanted to.

Elias springs to her mind.

The woman thinks on it for a few seconds, before replying. “Before you illegally try to shoot me in this hotel? No, not really. I mean, once you calm down I could buy you a drink and bring you up to speed on things. Maybe somewhere else that isn’t this trashed room.”

“I am very calm.”

“Your white knuckles would beg to disagree, Sameen.”

Shaw slowly forces herself to relax, even if looking at the woman she retired for, the woman who pretended to be her loving wife for five years is making her feel the opposite of ‘relaxed’. “Let me get dressed,” she says through gritted teeth and then almost petulantly marches into her bathroom with her clothes as if that woman hadn’t seen her naked before on several occasions in those five years.

Her fake-wife’s eyes look terribly amused by her act when their eyes meet before Shaw locks herself in the bathroom.

*

Shaw and that woman find themselves seated in the same underground club Shaw had been to earlier to meet the Manager. Now, the company is considerably worse. It puts her on edge because unlike hunting down people who deserve to die for their actions, sitting across this stranger is not something Shaw feels well-prepared for. For one, she is completely in the dark about what is going on. A large part of her brain feels as if it’s lagging behind, barely able to grasp the fact that her wife never died and that her wife has also been faking a complete life for five years—to what end, she can’t say.

And that is fucking terrifying.

And annoying.

They continue to stare at each other, not speaking much.

She has so many questions, but she doesn’t ask any of them. For the most part, it’s her hurt pride that prevents her from outright asking for answers to these questions, but she also doesn’t trust this woman _at all_. If someone is capable to pull of a con for _five fucking years_ , then this person must be the best liar in the world.

Shaw wonders briefly if this mess would have qualified her as victim on MTV’s show _Catfished_.

“I expected a lot of questions,” the woman admits, lightly drumming with her black nails on the table. Sam—her fake wife—has never painted her nails. Her hair also seems different and her entire posture leaves a different impression on Shaw. This is a completely different person, and it would be easier to believe that her wife had a secret evil twin than to grasp the concept of this particular long-con.

But Shaw knows better.

In the stories, evil twins never save your life. But this woman has.

“How about you start with telling me who the fuck you are?” Shaw suggests with a low voice and a threatening smile after another long moment of silence has passed between them. The buzzing night club atmosphere around them moves to the background while Shaw is completely focused on the woman next to her.

“Where to start?” the woman asks herself, tapping with her index finger against her chin as if to aggravate Shaw further.

“Like any insane story—with the beginning.”

“I have many, many names.” She leans in closer, and for some fucked up reason, the only thing Shaw can truly focus on is that she still smells the same, reminding her of home. One which no longer exists. “But you might’ve heard of the name Root before.” She whispers it into Shaw’s ear like a dirty secret. “That’s the real me.”

Shaw leans away from her to stare at her for the second time this night, completely flabbergasted her words. One of her brows ticks up, betraying her disbelief. “Root,” she mouths in disbelief, lightly shaking her head. That name is a myth. She knows that over the years, she’s collected many names ( _Baba Yaga_ being the most common one, to her eternal entertainment), and while her own name carries a certain weight, commands respect in its own right, it’s never uttered with the same reverence, with the same type of respect the name “Root” owns.

And now, what she’s believed to be a myth only weaker men believe in, is not only sitting next to her and freely admits to it, she’s apparently trusting Shaw enough to not spread this information like wildfire. The worth of this information is invaluable. Shaw remembers how many people tried to figure out who Root is before she started her retirement—for the woman who now turns out to be the very myth they had been looking for and arguably at the center of this criminal underground world.

You can’t make that shit up.

Lesser men in her place might’ve seen a simple con-artist in this woman claiming to be Root, but this woman has pretended to be someone else for five years so successfully that Shaw married into this lie, not suspecting a thing. She’s been played like ever before in her life and it makes her angry. Furious even.

She gave up her old life for a lie.

And then it hits her.

Shaw briefly closes her eyes. “Someone paid you to get me out of the way, right?” she guesses, desperate for another glass of that 40 years old whiskey.

Root’s eyes twinkle—she seems impressed, if Shaw has to take a guess. “Elias, as a matter of fact.”

Oh, the irony. “Motherfucker.”

“I convinced him it would be more beneficial for him to have you owe him a favor instead of just killing you. It was quite easy to win him over and sell him my idea for the long-con plan that eventually made him the king of the city that he now is. The sales pitch was too good to resist.”

“What was it?”

“‘What if I can send _Baba Yaga_ into retirement?’” Root quotes herself and shrugs. “Easy.”

“Easy,” Shaw repeats in a deadpan voice. “Sure, you just had to trick me and lie to me for several years.”

“Well, pulling it off successfully is another story,” Root admits, twirling the straw in her drink. It’s pink and smells sweet. If it weren’t for the hefty amount of vodka that Shaw can smell from her spot, she’d assume Root ordered something non-alcoholic. Root doesn’t add anything else to her statement and she looks down at her drink with a far away look.

Shaw can only stare in growing disbelief at that woman. “Sorry that my natural aversion to romantic liaisons has been an obstacle to your work and a burden you had to overcome,” she says in a deeply sarcastic tone. “Next time, might I suggest picking an easier target,” she tacks on, just to air some frustrated anger. If it weren’t for that fucking rule of no violence, then . . .

Root smiles into her half-finished drink. “I understand your anger. Really, I wish I could’ve simply done a divorce but I had to cut some loose ends and you ended up being . . . collateral damage,” she admits and has at least the decency to wince at that term. “How was I to know that Elias’ piece of shit of a son would take the two other things you loved in this world? Bear didn’t deserve such a death,” Root mumbles and for the first time tonight refers to their shared five years with something like actual regret. Bear has been _their_ dog and apparently that part of their marriage hasn’t been a complete lie. Of course not, Bear was very easy to love.

Shaw doesn’t want to think about their dead dog. “Loose ends?” she probes further, rubbing her sore knuckles from her earlier tussle with Mahoney.

Root looks at her again with an expression in her dark eyes that is too heavy for Shaw to analyze. “I disappeared for five years as well,” she reminds her with a somber tone. “By faking my death, I was able to immediately disappear and return to my old life. My departure from the civilian world had to be quick and clean.” Root taps lightly taps her ribs and winces. “Bruised and broken ribs and a shattered home life is my price I had to pay.”

“Boo-hoo,” Shaw makes, growing more and more impatient with that woman. “Spill. What did this gig win you? You obviously didn’t work for free for Elias, or am I wrong?” It’s a cheap taunt, but if there is someone that is allowed to feel bitter and betrayed in this club, it’s Shaw.

Root has the nerve to pout. “You make it sound so impersonal.”

“Because it is.”

Root looks like she wants to respond to that but then thinks better of it.

Shaw can’t really feel smug about having the last word on that when she’s on the losing side of this story no matter how she twists and turns it. It’s a bitter conclusion to draw. She takes a deep breath and then finishes her drink in one go. When she looks up she is confused to find the brief flicker of hurt in Root’s eyes. It must’ve been a trick of the neon green light panels’ reflection that created that impression.

Root clears her throat. “Once you decided to retire, it was easy to suggest to Elias how to gain the favor from you. And once you had managed to pull of that ‘impossible’ task it was easy to keep going, to make you stay away from this business and no longer pose a threat within this world—all without killing you.”

“A threat to whom?” Shaw had taken contracts, executed them, cashed in the payment and had then gone home. Over and over again, for years that had been her life. The personal vendetta she’s now on is a first.

Root plays with the sleeve of her black leather jacket. “The highest bidder, of course. You are insanely talented. I went over your file and it’s breathtaking what legends surrounding your name turned out to be actually watered down version of real events.” Root looks deeply impressed and leans in closer. “You are the most real thing in this world,” she adds, almost breathless.

Shaw only now notices how close Root’s face is. Their noses are almost touching. She leans away. “No one has access to the files, unless you work in the archives—which you clearly don’t if you are a hacker and killer for hire surrounded by myth and legends,” Shaw points out, making sure that her voice carries across how much she hates being treated like an idiot.

Root, the living myth, smiles at her. “As I said, I have many names,” she repeats her words from earlier, her smile widening.

Shaw doesn’t know what to say to that. 

“Are you now impressed?”

“No,” Shaw insists, flagging down the bartender to bring another drink. “You are a stranger to me and honestly, I’m still waiting for the part where you tell me a good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you the moment you make a step out of this hotel.”

Root tilts her head and sighs. “Elias has set his eyes on the High Table. He is no longer content with what he has built for himself in this city with your sweat and skills before your retirement. And he is keenly aware that your very presence, your continued existence can undo all that hard work of yours if you should feel like it. _That_ is why he is so angry at his son’s reckless actions—not that he shouldn’t be terrified of you otherwise, of course. But the fact that his son has given you a reason on a silver platter to hunt him and his family down is enough to make Elias feel a little . . . worried for his grand future plans.”

“You make it sound as if he would’ve tried to get me killed regardless of his son’s actions,” Shaw points out.

Root nods. “And can you blame him? After my planned death, even without Laskey’s crimes—how long would you have stayed away from this world?”

Shaw is happy to see her second drink placed in front of her. It’s a different waitress than when she was here with Finch. “I don’t know,” she mumbles and takes a sip. She really doesn’t. She liked her safe, calm life with Sam at her side. It was completely different from her exciting but also exhausting underground life—but without Sam there, how long would it have felt like that?

Maybe after Bear’s natural and peaceful death in a few years she would’ve found herself faced with that very question. “Back to the story. Elias paid you to get me out of the way—how did that happen? Was it a closed contract issued to the infamous Root and you answered? Or did you simply approach him with that idea to cash in big?”

Root looks conflicted. “You must understand that Elias is one of two—now three—people who know my identity. When he approached me with his offer, it was at first just to watch you, gather intel on you. Perhaps try to get closer to you to really figure out how you tick and what a weakness the infamous _Baba Yaga_ might have.” Root’s chuckle sounds a little nervous, Shaw notes. “It wasn’t hard to anticipate how he wanted that tale to end. I knew even back then that he had aspirations for the High Table, I knew where he wanted to be in a few years. Seeing you as the only real threat that might slow him down or even stop him completely should the right contract be put out, he wanted you gone.

“However, by that point, after getting close to you, I wouldn’t have been able to follow that objective. So before he could order me to kill you, I offered a way out for myself—and him. I told him that I could keep you out of this business, make you retire _and_ make his ascension to his desired spot at the Table easier by giving you that impossible task that would give him a good portion of NYC—and the power that came with it. He couldn’t refuse.”

“So you agreed upon five years just because?” Shaw wonders, realizing that Elias is still only some kingpin in NYC and nowhere near said High Table.

Root scoffs. “No, he insisted on five years because of his wayward son. At that time, his lovely offspring had just turned 16 and was of course nowhere near ready to take over for his dad who had higher goals in mind. Elias wanted to keep the NYC business in the family, even if he would have been too busy with gorging himself on power and influence once he gained that seat at the High Table to keep an eye on it himself. He estimated that within five years, he’d be able to teach his son all he needed to know so he’d be ready by the time he turned 21 to take over. I don’t have to tell you that Laskey doesn’t possess any of the businessman skills his father has, nor does he have an active interest in learning it. He thinks the power of a name stems from the name itself, not from the man behind that name.” Root sounds so condescending, so cold that for the first time Shaw realizes just how little that woman next to her has to do with the woman she pretended to be for five years.

“Any specific reason why you decided to die this week?” Shaw asks next.

“Laskey turned 21 last week and Elias has signed a contract with his blood that forces him to release me from his service and prohibits him from ever again contacting me for another of his gigs once his son reaches that age. It’s the only reason he didn’t renew his payment and to ask me to kill you.”

“Would you have refused him?” Shaw is certain to know the answer.

“I told you, not everything in those five years had been a lie,” Root mumbles in a low, weird voice, looking away. “I couldn’t kill you, not for all the money in the world. I simply have no desire to see you dead, quite the opposite.” She looks Shaw in the eyes when she says this. “No one simply kills _Baba Yaga_.”

Shaw looks away to stare at her half-empty glass in front of her. “That’s easy for you to say, after all you had five years to rehearse that.”

“Sameen, I’ve risked my reputation and life by tying myself to you, a very well-known killer in these circles. We can thank your terrifying reputation that people decided to collectively respect your privacy after your retirement. No one but Elias was allowed to know at that time that I am Root just pretending to be Samantha Groves, and the contract signed with his blood prohibits him from disclosing it even now.” She stops here for a moment and purses her lips. “But as we’ve seen tonight he has no trouble employing people who spit on the rules of this very institution. I had no guarantee but to trust him to respect the rules enough to not reveal my identity to you or anyone else in any way. I would’ve made an easy target, isolated as I had been from this world. As I said, for five years, I’ve disappeared as well.” Root pauses again. “Well, not entirely,” she admits, “I did have some hacking jobs to keep the name Root relevant enough so that no one would get the idea to go looking for me in any way—or assume I have died. Besides, I would’ve died in my day job.”

Samantha Groves had worked at an IT company. Hilarious.

“If you are looking for pity, then I can’t tell you how wrong you are to think you’ll get that from me.” Shaw forms a hard line with her lips.

“You asked, I answered. I can’t kill you for the same reason Cole couldn’t kill you tonight, despite sitting on the rooftop across the street with his loaded sniper, ready to shoot you at any moment. But he didn’t, instead he warned you just in time to give you a fighting chance against Mahoney before I made it into your room.”

“Unlike us, Cole and I are actual friends,” Shaw tells her, using the word ‘friends’ quite liberally here. Well, they’d worked on some gigs together and she’d never take a contract on his name. And now she knew that Cole would never kill her, even if $2 million were on the line.

Root watches her intently, but says nothing else.

Shaw looks around without paying too much attention to most people around her, and once she’s done with her quick sweep of the room, she looks at Root again. “How much?”

“Hm?”

“How much did Elias pay you for your contract with him?”

“$2 million per year,” she says without hesitation.

Shaw gapes at her. “What the fuck,” she whispers. The $2 million put on her head by Elias seem almost insulting now. If Finch only knew.

“I haven’t spent a penny from his payments. I’ll wire it to your account, you know for the emotional turmoil my faked death caused you, if you want,” Root offers, drumming with her slender fingers on the table again. She is clearly trying to diffuse the situation and bring some light humor back.

Shaw rolls her eyes. “I don’t want your cash, you can’t just throw some money my way and buy yourself out of this . . . guilt,” she finishes, her anger renewed and hot in her chest. She’s not just angry, she feels deeply betrayed, and is partly angry at herself for somehow not seeing this coming. She is the biggest idiot alive.

How could she have known what she was walking into when Root had crafted such a believable story and hadn’t slipped up even _once_ during those five years of marriage, including the few months before that? Shaw can’t help herself but also be impressed by Root’s lying skills.

Still, it stings too much to say it out loud. Ever.

Root sighs. “If it’s not money, then maybe you’ll accept my help? I’ve been told to be quite good with a computer.”

“No,” Shaw immediately says, ignoring the lame joke. “This is a personal matter.”

“Oh, I won’t step in between you and your prey. But I can help you in other ways. Keep some people busy who might have an active interest in seeing you back from your little retirement stint.” She doesn’t name any names, but there is one name in particular that immediately pops up at that: Jeremy Lambert.

Shaw’s stomach clenches at the memory of what she had done to actually complete the impossible task given to her by Elias. The marker she had given to Jeremy Lambert, convinced it’s the right price to pay for a future with the woman that turns out to be just as much part of this world as she’d been—she’d done it, convinced to never come back to this life so that Jeremy Lambert would never find an opportunity to cash in his favor owed by her now. Fuck.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Shaw quietly asks, blaming her finished second drink for that question. It ventured too close to talk about what they had in their marriage and how it had been enough for Shaw, enough to put an end to her old life.

Root looks conflicted not for the first time tonight. “I thought about it, often in fact,” she says slowly, a quiet admission. “But a) the contract between me and Elias didn’t allow it—and if I had broken it nothing would’ve stopped him from selling me out—and b) even if I had found the guts to risk it, I wasn’t sure what you would do. I expected the same anger from you you’re feeling now, but unlike in this very moment, I wouldn’t have been inside a hotel with you that represents neutral ground where no violence is tolerated, where no business is allowed to take place. You could’ve killed me in our house, and it would’ve taken days, maybe even weeks for Elias to even realize something was amiss. Besides, I selfishly just wanted to have those five years, consequences be damned.” It’s said with such a fervor that Shaw’s heart does something weird and stumbles, making her angry all over again. This is Root, not Sam.

Shaw rolls her eyes to hide her momentary weakness. “The legendary Root, in reality a coward. Who would’ve thought?” she asks no one in particular. It’s a little childish to try and get a rise out of Root with that taunt, but Shaw can’t help herself. Listening to all these explanations that Root so willingly shares with her is making her head feel full and her chest feel empty.

She can’t even tell for sure what she would’ve done had Root revealed herself at some point in those five years.

She needs to get away from this woman. She pays for their drinks, one gold coin for each drink, and stands up. “Don’t follow me,” she throws over her shoulder, and she doesn’t just mean it for this very moment, but in general.

She doesn’t look back to check if Root got the message or not.

*

On her way back to her room, alone and unbothered, Reese stops her in the hotel lobby. “You okay, Shaw?” he asks quietly, a serious expression in his face.

She gives him a questioning look. There is no short answer to that question. At least Root has left a few minutes ago, with the words “I’ll see you around”. Asshole.

“We’ve received some noise complaints from your floor and well, I’ve just seen the state your room is in,” Reese explains when he notices her blank stare.

“It’s fine.”

“There was some blood.”

“Well, you can blacklist Claire Mahoney if it makes you happy,” Shaw tells him, not feeling anything when she betrays Mahoney’s involvement. It’s easy to do it, Mahoney had broken the rules first.

Reese nods. “Consider it done. Anything else?”

 _My wife never died and was Root all this time. Ready to laugh at me?_ “I’d like a new room,” Shaw says, feeling tired.

“Of course.” He walks to his desk and gives her a new key card without another word. When Shaw reaches for a gold coin, Reese shakes his head. “No need, the Manager has said it’s on the house.”

“Tell the Manager to stick out of it, people might think he has a soft spot for some of his guests.”

“I’ll be sure to quote you on that,” Reese smiles, not hiding his awareness of how Finch has certain favorites among his regular guests here. After all, once upon a time, Reese had been just as much a killer as Shaw before Finch had offered him this quiet gig at the hotel reception. She has no idea why Reese took him up on it, and she’s not about to pry if it’s because of past drinking problem that almost got him killed on a job.

Or maybe he’s just getting old.

Shaw walks to her new room and feels really tired.

*

After scouting the address Zoe had given her the other day and making sure that it’s correct, she returns to the hotel, takes a shower and gets ready for the night. She has not heard from Root since their talk in the underground club and she’s glad for that. She can’t deal with two messes at once. She hopes to tie the loose ends tonight, get back at the fuckers that broke into her home a few days ago to take away what she loved. And then—maybe—she will have the head space to take care of the Root of her problems. Heh.

The hotel management has given her an extra big suite and has seen to it to deliver a gift. Shaw recognizes the label on the gun casing immediately. Unlike her personal favorite, the H&K USP compact .45 ACP, it’s a H&K P30L with a custom made compensator. It lies heavy in her hand but has a good grip and fits 15 rounds. A handwritten message on thick, expensive paper is included in that case as well. “ _Please accept the first part of the hotel’s apology for last night’s unpleasant events—F_.”

Shaw almost snorts. Finch has no idea that Mahoney breaking into her room to kill her while being on Elias’ payroll wasn’t the ‘unpleasant event’ she’s trying to forget right now. But she accepts the gift all the same.

Dressed in her dark suit, complete with a bulletproof vest underneath her white pressed shirt and fitted with enough ammo to take out half the club she’s going to, Shaw leaves her room. Both guns are sitting comfortably in their respective spots. Her USP compact is hidden at her lower back, her new gun is strapped into a holster underneath her arm, pressing against the side of her vest.

Reese is, as always, at his desk and greets her politely. “Did you find your gift?” he asks, as if he hadn’t been the one to instruct some valet to bring it into her room while she was out and about.

“I did, yes.”

“Great, then allow me to hand you the second part of the Manager’s efforts to get back into your good graces.”

“I’ve never even voiced out that I was fucked up about Mahoney managing to break the hotel’s sacred no-violence-policy,” Shaw tells him, amused at the whole display. “I even restrained myself from leaving a scathing one star review on Yelp,” she doubles down on her joke. This hotel isn’t even listed on any travel agency site, let alone rating sites like Yelp.

Reese shrugs. “The Manager wants to see his guests happy,” is all he says, but he shares a knowing smile with her. And then he hands her new car keys.

She stares at them in her hand.

“Enjoy your night, Miss Shaw,” Reese tells her, smile firmly in place.

She is unable to hide her smirk when she spots the 2011 black Dodge Charger right in front of the hotel steps, a valet already holding the door open for her.

It’s go time.

*

She parks her new car across the street of the night club and remains seated for now. She watches the long queue in front of the club that has been dubbed ‘Red Circle’, when in reality it is several clubs folded into one. Certain parts are restricted to the public and are only open to people like Elias or Shaw—or one of Laskey’s buddies who is making his way towards the club with two other friends, walking around as if the city belongs to them. It must be Raf, according to her research and she couldn’t care less. But she watches him and his friends talk to the men keeping an eye on the growing queue and once they mention their names at the bouncer of the main entrance, they’re escorted to the side entrance where they disappear behind a heavy metal door. Raf has a wide, arrogant grin on his face the whole time.

Shaw spots a familiar face on door duty at the side entrance and checks one last time if she’s properly equipped, then she gets out of her car, locks it up and crosses the street.

It’s easy to become one with the shadows in her dark suit and sneak up on the bouncer at the side entrance. With one fluid motion she takes hold of Grice’s shoulder with one hand and holds her USP compact at the back of his skull with the other. “Why don’t you take the night off, Grice?” she asks, her voice low.

Grice doesn’t even flinch. “Sure. Thanks, Shaw,” he whispers, refusing to even throw a look over his shoulder. He rolls his shoulders the moment she lets go of him and starts to walk away.

She doesn’t linger to find out where he’s going, she slips into the club and moves closer to her targets. A long set of stairs awaits her and she walks them down, noticing that there are no security cameras to evade. Part of this world is that the rich and powerful love their privilege of privacy too much to give it up, even if it meant a better security against people like Shaw simply waltzing into their domain.

The Red Circle takes pride in its security, but the surveillance systems are set up beyond the locker room and shower stalls; anyone entering this section of the club through the side entrance does so with the knowledge that no camera will catch them entering this place.

Living and working in the shadows is what the people in Shaw’s world do best.

Once she leaves the stairs behind she reaches a wide corridor. The dark hallway is scarcely lit with red thin neon light circles and blue dot lights embedded in the dark tiled floor, but it’s not hard to find her way around. She follows the loud voices coming from what she assumes to be some fancy locker room for the men—the guests can change their into their pool attire and get ready for a swim in the hot tubs and pools this club offers on this level. 

Shaw puts her gun away and instead gets her military style switchblade out, keeping a firm grasp on the dark handle. If she manages to keep her presence here a secret for long enough, the probability of success rises.

Without making any noise in her black Oxford shoes, she enters the locker room and slinks into the shadows. It is in her favor that part of the club’s style is to insist on barely lighting its rooms—it makes it easier to become one with the shadows and get an overview of the situation inside the room. The same red circle neon lights and complimentary blue light accents are placed in the room, barely giving enough light to not stumble around in complete darkness.

Laskey’s buddy and one of his two companions are still in the locker room getting ready. Sadly, the missing member of the asshole trio that broke into her house is missing; Titus, the one that got bitten by Bear in his right arm is sitting this party out it seems. Doesn’t matter, Shaw will find him as well once the time is right.

She makes sure that she is not missing anything, then she calculates the best approach. She doesn’t smile when she realizes how easy this is going to be, because staying focused is her one mantra she has. There will be time to be smug about this. Later. For now, she gets to work.

With ease she sneaks up on Raf’s friend and stabs him below his chin, one quick motion that once she pulls out the knife causes him to bleed out in silene. His back hits the lockers at his back and he slides down, dying on his way down, leaving a trail of blood behind.

Raf notices it in his mirror and freezes.

But by then, it’s too late. Shaw is on him before he can do as much as turn around to prevent her attack. With routinized movements, she avoids his fist and punches him in the side, right where his liver is to then slam his face nose first against the ceramic sink when he falters in his attempt to defend himself. With a loud crack, his nose breaks and starts to bleed, a trail of blood running down over his lips and down his chin. “ _Cyka blyat_ ,” he curses in a nasal voice, trying once more to fight back, but Shaw simply breaks his left knee with one precise kick.

He howls in pain.

“Are you really going to kill me over a car and a fuckin’ dog?” he asks her with an angry hiss, glaring at her. “You stupid bitch, who do you think you are?”

Shaw ignores his question. “Where’s Laskey?” she asks, twisting his arm to cause him some more pain. He almost loses his balance, since his left leg has been rendered useless by her kick.

“Go fuck yourself,” he groans.

She twists him around by his arm and starts to choke him, keeping a steady pressure on his twisted arm with her other hand. “Where?” she growls into his ear, feeling how his buddy is quaking in fear.

“He’s here, in one of the pools,” he finally gasps out and for a second or two she doesn’t move, allowing him to think that it’s over already, but then she simply pushes him over, kicks at the back of his broken knee that forces him to flop down on his knees and he yells in pain, only interrupted by her starting to push his face into the by now to the brim filled sink. The water is lukewarm and he gets out another “fuck you” before he drowns.

Shaw lets go if him and watches his corpse drop to the floor. She takes his phone with her and makes her way through the locker room to the door leading to the pool area. Some melancholic sounding house music is playing over the speakers, the deep bass revibrating through the room. The half-naked waitresses walking around the club almost feel tacky. Shaw keeps to the shadows and remains behind the curtained glass panels, scanning the present guests. She is looking for one specific guests, the arrogant dimwit that thinks daddy dearest has any control over the situation he caused.

Shaw stops walking and stares through the glass wall.

There, in the pool at the other end of the club Laskey is having a good time with some girls and some friends. One is the missing companion from Raf. Shaw can’t help but spare a hateful glare at Elias’ useless boy. A lanky show-off, he keeps celebrating himself and orders another bottle of expensive champagne, several girls around him.

And then, the moment is over and Shaw is back to filtering out where the guards are posted and takes them out. She manages to take out two guards with her knife without making a sound, before another guard surprises her from behind by entering through the glass door leading to her current location. Fuck. He immediately is on her, his hand snapping to the gun holstered at his belt.

Shaw swipes his wrists down, preventing him from pulling the trigger on her, and continues to push back against him, trying to make him lose his balance. He is taller than her and is hoping to get a punch in—they struggle for a moment, before Shaw manages to throw him into the nearest towel shelf. She puts her foot down on his neck and curses under her breath.

So much for taking the stealth approach.

Gone is her moment of surprise. Some of the nearby guests frantically jump out of their rented hot tub and quickly run the other direction, towards the stairs. By now, the commotion and the panicked guests running the stairs up to escape the pool area have reached Laskey.

His eyes meet hers and widen in fear. He immediately reaches for his gun underneath his white towel and hesitates—he wants to be brave but comes up short.

Shaw keeps staring at him and then shoots the guard under her foot in the head, not one moment looking away from him. He flinches and backs away, gun still in his hand.

Coward.

She makes her way over to him, but is stopped by some muscled mountain of a man, trying to get in between her and her prey. She shoots him in the shoulder, in the stomach, and then in the head, only seeing from the corners of her eyes how he drops backwards into the pool he’s climbed out of. She’s already hurrying after Laskey who’s stumbling up the stairs. Her shots from the USP compact all miss and she curses again. She has to catch him, but he has some considerable head start.

She shoots all the guards that try to get in her way, midway switching to the P30L because that is faster than to reload her USP compact. She barely notices how her hunt has lead her to the neon lit main dance floor of the club, with several party goers dancing in one dense crowd to some track where the bass feels like its own presence in the room, pushing against her bulletproof vest and chest.

Laskey looks silly in his swimming trunks and the white towel he insists on keeping himself wrapped in while he stumbles barefooted through the full club. His eyes are wide and terrified whenever he looks back to check where Shaw is and if he’s still being pursued by her, and Shaw can’t help but feel some sense of satisfaction from that. Bear will remain dead after she’s killed that fucker, but man, it’s going to feel good to get some final closure.

She lifts her hand with the gun and shoots two of Laskey’s guards on her way through the crowd. Only a few even scream, most don’t notice right away what is going on with all the white flashing lights and the loud, bass boosted music coming out of the large speakers around the dance floor. Shaw steps over the corpses and keeps walking when a movement on the side almost distracts her.

Root.

Root in a long, backless dress.

Root who is there with someone else, but Shaw can only gape at her in that brief moment where their gazes meet across the crowded dance floor, the white flashing lights making Root’s surprised face look like a hallucination. Shaw blinks, but no, Root is still here.

Shaw angrily looks away and keeps walking. _Don’t get distracted_. She shoots another guard and forces herself to forget that Root is here for some goddamn reason. All she knows is that there is no way this is a coincidence. Hell, Root might have just pretended to be surprised to see her, another lie in her collection of lies.

She pushes all that away from her mind.

Shaw climbs another set of stairs and makes it to the wardrobe section of the club and is met with more guards, Laskey on his way to get out of the club—and away from her. Shaw hisses in displeasure and makes short work of the goons protecting this weasel. Three try and fail to stop her, but it’s another delay in her pursuit and Laskey buys himself some more time—and gets further away from her while she pushes her latest kill off her after chocking him with her legs wrapped around his chest and her arm winded around his neck. She gets to her feet, reloads her gun and follows Laskey into the VIP section. The same color scheme in neon lights as in the rest of the club is implemented here and she seems so close to catching him when suddenly the head of Elias’ security team appears in front of her, loaded gun lifted and aimed at her chest.

Anthony Marconi, better known as Scarface, doesn’t hesitate and pulls the trigger.

Shaw groans in pain when the impact of the bullet against her vest throws her backwards to the ground, briefly knocking the air out of her lungs. She manages to evade his other fired bullets, but she can feel the toll this night is beginning to take on her. She’s stopped counting how many of Elias’ bulldogs she’s killed tonight, but some of them managed to get in some good hits—and she’s still not fully healed from her initial ordeal at Laskey and his buddies’ hands.

And now Scarface is making it less and less likely for her to catch Laskey tonight. Which in turn means that Elias’ will increase the security around his son and hide him away in some safe house that she will have to find first.

Things that are too time consuming for her taste of revenge.

Shaw rolls sideways behind a pillar to get some cover, slowly uses the support behind her back to get on her feet and is glad to notice that Scarface has emptied his mag and is about to reload. Shaw twirls around the pillar and throws herself at him, stopping him from reloading his gun. They stumble around for a bit, each of them getting in some punches, yet no one managing to overpower the other. Shaw kicks him in the stomach, watches him stumble away from her and hit the ground and she makes a decision.

Laskey must have left by now.

And Scarface is not an active target right now. She is wasting her fucking time with this.

She picks up her P30L, wants to reload and finds that she’s out of ammo. Fuck. And then Scarface is on his feet again and ready to go again, but she’s quicker. She ducks under his fired shot, and pushes against him, but her sore muscles and her pain in her chest from that shot are still working against her. Scarface manages to get a good grip on her, twist himself around her, use his body weight as leverage and then—throws her over the railing, back down to the dance floor where she’s left the other dead guards. It’s completely empty by now, most guests on their way out. Some panicked screams are still ringing in her ear.

Scarface stares down at her, not quick enough to raise his gun.

Shaw reaches for her USP compact, fires the last three bullets in Scarface’s direction and watches him run away to safety.

Her back is killing her, not to mention her bruised ribs and her small wound underneath her right ear, bleeding. She turns around, heaves herself up to her feet, and limps out of the Red Circle, towards her car all while holding her side. No sign of Laskey. Fuck fuck fuck.

Shaw can feel sticky blood on her hand that is holding the wound on her side and she curses. She’s disappointed at her failure to kill Laskey—but above all, she’s angry.

Root’s face flashes in her mind and she grits her teeth.

*

She’s not surprised to find Root sitting in her black Dodge Charger when she makes it to the car, still bleeding. She’s still wearing that revealing black dress and she notices just now that her hair seems to have more curls in it, complete with some dark eye make up and red lipstick.

“Get out of my car,” Shaw growls at her, her voice strained by pain and blood loss. Sweat is running down her face and she can feel her body slowly giving in to the pain. It’s her sheer will that keeps her from losing control over her body—that and her refusal to show weakness in front of this woman that insists on being in her life.

Root looks worried. “Maybe I should drive.”

“Fuck off,” she spits out and manages to slip out of the parking spot with just one hand. “What were you doing in there?” She doesn’t ask how Root got into this car, because why would she ask one of the best hackers in the world how she managed to circumvent the security system of a car? Pointless.

“Meeting a business partner,” Root says, vague and distracted. “You should see Dr.—”

“I know what I have to do,” Shaw falls into her words and exhales. “This is not my first rodeo, so shut up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Root husks out.

Shaw wants to glare at her, curse her, but she has to focus on where she’s driving, while still trying to slow down the bleeding as best as she can. Then, her phone rings. No, not her phone. _Raf_ ’s phone.

And it’s Laskey who calls.

“ _Raf, where are you? Titus and I can pick you up,_ ” Laskey says in Russian, his panic evident in his breathless voice.

“ _Raf is dead_ ,” Shaw tells him, also in Russian, and hangs up.

Root doesn’t comment on it. Once Shaw stops the car, Root looks around and she can see the confusion blooming on her face. “That’s not Dr. Enright’s office—” she starts with a frown.

“Yeah,” Shaw grumbles with impatience in her voice and gets with some difficulty out of the car. The bleeding has gotten worse now and she starts to see black dots dancing in her vision. Damn, she can’t even tell when that bullet managed to graze her. Another scar for the books. She limps towards the narrow alley and doesn’t check if Root is following her. Of course she is.

“Why him?” Root whispers behind her. For a moment she seems to debate whether or not to try and steady Shaw some more, but Shaw’s glare seems to make her rethink that idea.

“Because,” Shaw simply says, not in the mood to talk to Root. Before she starts to knock she turns one last time to Root. “Don’t talk and don’t make me look bad,” she hisses at her.

“Oh Shaw, I couldn’t make you look bad even if I tried,” Root promises with a smile.

Shaw doesn’t deign that with an answer. She knocks three times, announces her presence in Russian and struggles to keep upright. The guy guarding the door opens after a moment of silence and makes a face when he sees her state.

Shaw gives him look, daring him to comment on it in any way, and then not so subtly reveals her guns. “Where is he?”

“Second room to the left, can’t miss it,” he hurries to explain, avoiding eye contact for the most part. He doesn’t even question Root’s presence or even asks for a name from her. Apparently, if Shaw appears in tow with someone than that someone has obviously somehow earned their trust in advance—it’s either that or this guard is shit at his job.

Shaw hobbles to said room and pushes it open after knocking two times. Peter Yogorov is sitting behind a heavy, expensive looking wooden desk and stiffens in his leather chair when he recognizes her. “Shit,” he mumbles and takes a deep breath. He closes whatever binder is lying in front of him and pushes a little away from the desk.

“Get the needle and blood bag out, we’ve got a transaction ahead of us,” she tells him with a sardonic smile, flipping a gold coin his way.

He catches it gracefully. “Every damn time,” he groans and starts moving.

*

Shaw remains in the armchair after Yogorov is done giving her some of his blood. He’s left to get cleaned up, but maybe he’s left because he can’t stand watching how Shaw is still busy stitching up her own wounds. She has to use Root’s compact mirror because somehow a Russian mobster has enough tacky taste to furniture his main hideout like a knock-off pocket version of Versailles, but has no spare funds to invest into an actual mirror.

At least Yogorov was able to find some first aid kit.

Root is silently watching her every move like a hawk. She seems more thoughtful than disgusted. “Clever to go to Elias’ competition to keep a low profile.” She smiles a little when she praises her, leaning her chin on her open palm.

Shaw gives her a look.

“I wasn’t following you, Shaw,” Root suddenly starts, a more serious tone sneaking into her voice. It’s weird how different Root sounds from the woman she pretended to be around Shaw for five years. “I know it looks that way, but it’s not. I met with a business partner there, he insisted on that club. I wonder why,” she adds in a dry tone, looking down on her black nail polish. It’s chipped on her left index finger and that is apparently enough to make her frown. “Word travels fast in this city and your return has been with . . . quite the body count. Leon Tao’s business has never boomed more.”

“Great,” Shaw deadpans, adamant to talk as little as possible to Root. She clenches her teeth when the next stitch tugs particularly painfully underneath her skin. “Still don’t care,” she gets out between a clenched jaw, trying to breathe through the pain when she applies some more disinfectant on a piece of gauze.

Root laughs quietly. “You will soon,” she promises, cryptic and not very helpful. If it’s supposed to be a warning it’s too vague to make Shaw care about it.

Besides, she has other problems. “Elias will have his men watch Laskey 24/7 now.” Shaw makes sure to throw Root a dirty look while she finishes up her medical work. “Thanks for that.”

Root tilts her head, not in the least worried. It’s . . . incredibly annoying and Shaw hates that she even notices this. But she’s used—even after returning for a limited time only from her retirement—that people are tense around her, and have this instinctive inclination to try and not piss her off.

Root, on the other hand, seems to operate on the exact opposite principle. It appears to be her wish to annoy Shaw as much as possible to wait and see what happens. And she knows how to push her buttons because she’s spent five long years around her, learning all there is to learn about Shaw—while Shaw sees virtually a complete stranger in Root.

It sucks ass, to be honest.

“If it’s any consolation for you, my meeting didn’t go well, either,” Root murmurs, regretful about . . . something. “I didn’t mean to distract you.”

“Tough shit.” Then Shaw realizes how it implicates that she might’ve distracted her. “You didn’t.”

“My offer to help still stands.”

“You’d help me by getting as far away from me as possible.”

Root answers with one of her weird knowing smiles, but she doesn’t say anything else. Shaw can feel that it’s best not to ask, she’s sure she’ll find out what this is about at some point—she doubts that Root will just up and disappear.

A tiny part of her isn’t even sure if she really wants her to.

Once she’s done with stitching herself up, she gets to her feet, puts her bullet proof vest on, re-buttons her bloody shirt and tests her pain tolerance and range of movement with her new stitches. The wound is right below the edge of the vest and she is glad she went with one extra layer of bandages, this way the edge won’t rub against her sensitive stitched up wound.

All in all she feels capable enough to at least go back out there and make it to the hotel. It’s enough to defend herself should Elias think round two would be a good idea tonight. But she doubts it will come to that. After all, Laskey will need every protection his father can spare—hunting her down seems impossible under these circumstances.

Which is good, Shaw needs some sleep.

Root trails after her on her high heels, still not saying anything. The clicking of her heels sounds almost comforting.

Shaw sighs in defeat, and accepts her lot.

*

It only occurs to her back inside her car while driving to the hotel that she could technically simply kill Root, right this second. As long as they’re on neutral grounds it’s fair game and she does have more than enough reasons to pull the trigger.

Her hands grow clammy just thinking of trying to kill Root. She is glad that Root isn’t looking her way when she briefly glances at her. She is angry, yes, but she decides that getting rid of her permanently is the wrong move to make right now. She might come to regret that call, but she justifies that choice with needing more answers from Root, once she has the head space for all that. Once she is done with her hunt.

Both of her hands remain on the wheel and she doesn’t consider hurting Root again.

At least for now.


	3. finish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we've reached the end of this part (with a small delay)--have fun!

The next morning, Shaw parks her car in front of a church posing as a house of faith. In reality, Elias uses its basement for storing his money in cash and keeping a collection of documents and other sort of dirt on some big names in the city inside the vault. His somewhat sudden rise to power five years ago has allowed him to amass quite the collection—no wonder, then, how Zoe wants her only real competition in this city to be gone.

She could kill Elias as well, of course. But in their world, no matter how dark and criminal it may be, has a certain set of rules and principles. Back in the day, Finch liked to remind her how these very things are the only thing that kept them apart from mere animals. And so, no matter how much she wants Laskey gone, his father is still someone who operates within his good right to try and protect his son—they’re family. Killing Elias would have nothing to do with what has happened a few days ago at her house; after all, he hadn’t ordered his son to be a complete idiot and do what he did.

She can only start thinking about taking Elias out once he openly goes against her. Shaw expects him to once his son is dead.

Shaw sighs. She remains seated in her car and makes sure that she is not walking into a trap. She has scouted this are yesterday morning, and just like the other day, there are no guards posted at the entrance or patrolling the rooftops of the nearby buildings—meaning, Elias has no idea that she knows about this place. And how could he, when he is also unaware of Shaw’s good standing with the Continental’s receptionist who is quite surprisingly dating his direct competition. And she doubts that he has bothered to do much research on her since her sudden return to this world—after all, her skill has remained the same and he knows who he’s dealing with from their past transactions.

Shaw counts it as a blessing that people think they know her.

It’s her reputation that has kept Root—well, her fake wife actually—out of harm’s way because no one had an interest in pissing Shaw off; it’s also the only reason why Root’s plan of faking her death and returning to the underground has worked in the first place. With the exception of Elias, no one else knows who she is to Shaw. She’s been used from start to finish and yet she can’t find it in her to pull the trigger on Root.

It's pitiful.

Shaw checks her ammunition and if her knife is firmly attached in its casing above her ankle. Then, she adjusts her dark shades on her nose, which are sitting right above the cut to hide how tired she looks. Not that she cares too much what she looks like, after all most people don’t even get to see her face when they draw their last breath, but it’s a sunny day and last thing she wants to do is squinting against the sun.

She gets out of the car and crosses the street. Since there are no guards placed outside the church, she is free to walk inside. The incendiary grenades attached to the lower back of her bullet proof vest clatter a little when she pushes the wooden door open of the old building. She slows down a little, feigning to be a simple visitor of the church; the only thing that might seem odd to someone is to see a woman dressed in a dark tailored suit with a white shirt and narrow black tie, but no one pays her any mind. She reaches the back rows, the preaching voice of the Russian priest echoing off the richly decorated church walls. Some people are actually praying with him, but the priest himself is the first obstacle, since he is in on the gig as well. Elias pays him handsomely for his loyalty and his support for Elias’ cause, but Shaw has no doubt that putting some pressure on the priest should get him to talk. He must know the number combination of the vault in the basement as well.

Shaw also spots two guards among the regulars of this church, eyeing their surroundings and it doesn’t take long for the first one to look her way.

Shaw is ready. With a quick reach behind her she pulls out her P30L and shoots the guard that has just enough time to yell her name to his colleague. He catches a head shot just like the first one did. And while the other people run in panicked frenzy out of the church, the priest backs away towards the door that no doubt leads downstairs—and where more guards are posted, she assumes.

She almost caught up to him when her burner phone buzzes. Shaw tries to ignore it but it buzzes again, and finally, she keeps following the priest through the door, while also checking her fucking phone.

**CM busted you**

**E and team on his way to your location**

Shaw rolls her eyes. Root’s insistence to prove her words right by showing her how much she cares about her well-being and her continued survival is really starting to piss her off. It’s distracting, unnecessary—and fucking confusing as well. Root left last night when Shaw had stopped the car in front of the hotel. With another set of mysterious farewell words “See you around, sweetie” she vanished into the night to do whatever it is that Root is doing when she’s not annoying Shaw with her presence.

Everything would be easier if she would just shoot Root next time she sees her.

But that’s not something she can think about right now. She pushes the door open and is immediately met with two guards aiming at her. Distracted as she is, she barely manages in time to duck back out of the entry way, narrowly missing the bullets fired her way. Fucking Root. Getting her killed by accident simply because she annoys Shaw enough to pull parts of her focus away from the job at hand.

She takes a deep breath and kicks the door open again without stepping through. Once they finish their round of ammo, Shaw slips inside and finishes them off. Leaving the two dead bodies lying on the stairs, she steps over them and hurries down. Two more guards armed with automatic rifles are waiting for her and its Shaw’s excellent aiming that makes her walk out of that encounter. They drop dead within split seconds of each other, leaving behind a shaking priest, looking around to conjure a quick escape way out of thin air. But there isn’t one—quite the stupid architectural flaw, Shaw thinks.

Not her problem, though.

The priest is on his knees at the end of the stairs and looks outright terrified of her, his hand clasped together as if he was about to pray for his survival.

Shaw almost scoffs at that. “ _Calm down, priest. I’m simply here to check on the dough,_ ” she tells him in Russian, slowly reloading her P30L. “ _You don’t mind, do you?_ ” she goes on and points at the closed metal gate, behind which two young women are sitting with equally terrified expressions in their pale faces. Apparently Elias has hired them to count his cash by hand and file away the dirt he keeps collecting to keep his tight control over the city.

Shaw feels the weight of the incendiary grenades at her lower back.

“He is going to kill me,” the priest tells her, breathing hard. He doesn’t fight her when she grabs his shoulder and starts dragging him towards the key pad. “He will know I gave you access to his secrets.”

“I don’t care about his secrets,” Shaw smiles at him, pushing him further ahead. She might as well have said _I don’t care about you_. “Walk.”

The priest makes an unhappy noise but follows her instructions.

He only starts to get difficult again when they reach the heavy metal fence with the gate, locked by a code secured lock. The two young women who sit behind that ceiling high fence are staring at the priest and at Shaw, clearly not sure what to do. There is no other way out for them but to go through that gate—where Shaw is.

“I can’t let you inside,” the priest tries again. “This is where most of his power resides. Not just the money, but the foundation of why he’s so feared in the city.”

Shaw kicks his legs away from underneath him, forcing him to kneel and presses his face against the thick metal bars. “Look, I will get inside one way or another. He will shoot you no matter what,” she reminds him, putting her own gun away.

The priest closes his eyes for a brief moment, and then he types in the 8 digits long code. The gate unlocks and slides to the side. Shaw straightens her posture and tells the two women to get out of there. They don’t have to be told twice.

“How do you even plan on getting it all out? You didn’t even bring a bag,” the priest coughs out, still on the ground and clearly unhappy with his looming fate.

Shaw gives him a look for his semi-serious taunt. “I told you I don’t care about what’s in here,” she says and reaches for the grenades. Three in total, she lights each one up and throws them on the visible stack of money the two women were just busy counting.

And then she turns around and leaves once the fire starts burning in earnest. The priest can either run or burn with Elias’ foundation of his power—but either way, he has not much longer to live if Root’s text is right and Elias is truly on his way here after Claire Mahoney busted her ass. Maybe her visit to Zoe Morgan has not been as secret as assumed. Fucking hell.

She leaves as quickly as she came.

*

The priest is shot ten minutes later, with Carl Elias himself pulling the trigger.

Shaw disappears from the rooftop before she can be spotted.

*

But Shaw isn’t done yet. She didn’t simply burn the paper foundation of his empire to anger him, she did it to send a message, to flex a little with what she can do in case Elias needs a reminder. He seems to be under the impression that he can somehow win this thing.

So it might come as a surprise to him when she’s standing in the middle of the street and fires at his SUV, taking out the driver and one tire. With a screech the car comes to a sudden halt, the other guards pushing the doors open to fire back at her.

She ducks behind the SUV, her shoulder pressing against the warm grill of the car and takes out one bodyguard after the other until only Elias remains seated on the backseat. He doesn’t reach for his gun, he simply starts cleaning his glasses and feigns to be the same unperturbed business man he always likes to give.

She drags him out of the destroyed car and aims her P30L at him. “Where is he?” she simply asks, refraining from showing too much of her anger. She doesn’t have to specify who she’s talking about.

Elias remains fairly calm and collected even after losing almost a dozen men and being manhandled by Shaw. “He’s my son,” he tries, adjusting his little glasses, as if to remind her who she’s talking about.

“And he killed my dog, stole my car, and laughed while doing it.”

“The youth sometimes does things—”

“Where. Is. He.”

Elias straightens his back and pulls at his jacket, ever the focused man. “And you leave me and my business alone?” he asks with a small, hopeful smile. At least they’ve entered the negotiation phase of this information exchange. Shaw has worked several times with Elias in the past and she knows how that man got to where he is now. She has no doubt that if Elias hadn’t made a deal with the devil (Root) he’d still be where he is right now—perhaps not as fast as he ended up getting to that place as he eventually did, but he would’ve found a way. People like him always find a way, especially in their world order.

And now he’s trying to protect what he considers his by right of the strong prevailing in this business. It’s worth more to him then his own flesh and blood—then again, his business can’t just up and go do something colossally stupid as his son had done.

“You see, I need to have some sort of reassurance that you won’t simply come after me. Not after you burned my years worth of work to the ground,” Elias explains to her when she doesn’t give him an answer right away.

“You are still alive, aren’t you?” Shaw points out.

Elias relents with a nod. “That is true enough. And yet . . . your anger has left quite the body count behind. I heard that Leon Tao had to hire more people to keep up with your work.”

“You could’ve just stopped sending your men against me,” Shaw points out.

“I could have yes. But what kind of father would I be to simply let my son be slaughtered?”

“The kind of father you are right now. Or did you reconsider your offer of selling him out for your safety?” Shaw knows that he won’t simply hand over his son, that he will still instruct a dozen men to protect his brat as best as they can, but he also must know that he will most likely lose. It’s the only explanation why he is even entertaining this talk, why he is offering this deal. His continued survival—and with that the survival of his business—for the life of his son.

Only the strong make it in this world.

Elias has a calculating look in his eyes. His glasses flash briefly when he looks to the sky, taking a deep breath. “Our world is ruled by principles and rules that are sometimes not very pleasant,” he begins fiddling with the cuff of his jacket. “Sometimes a sacrifice has to be made.” He looks her straight in the eyes when he says it. “Do we have a deal?”

Shaw has a bad feeling to say yes. She remembers Root’s warning texts, knows that a Claire Mahoney is still loose on the city working for Elias and who has most likely also accepted a contract on Shaw’s head.

“I will leave you alone if you pull the contract on me,” Shaw says after a moment. She doesn’t mean Mahoney’s contract, but she is curious to see if Elias will admit that he hired Cole as well.

Elias makes another small nod, his eyes knowing. “The contract Cole accepted,” he specifies. He doesn’t grin, but there is this smug air around him that is enough to grate on Shaw’s nerves. They both know damn well that Claire Mahoney will still be able to try and complete the contract, even if Cole—who had yet to earnestly try to kill her—is no longer actively out there working for Elias.

Shaw agrees to it anyway. There is not much she can do right now. After all, Mahoney will be taken care of by the Manager for breaking the golden hotel rule. “The very one. Abort the contract and we have a deal.”

He looks like Shaw just confirmed something but she pushes that aside and waits for his answer. It’s not hard to find out if there’s a contract running on someone’s name, even if it’s your own. He has to know that. “Done,” he says, his face looking more serious now. “I would feel better if you’d let me take care of that first before I have to disclose the location of Mikhael,” he admits, his warm, friendly tone almost sounding genuine.

Shaw doesn’t buy it. “Or I can shoot you and simply find your son myself. It’ll just be faster if you tell me.”

“I heard what you did to Raf,” he tells her, hedging now. He’s trying to buy time and it pisses her off. What is his play here? It makes her feel unease and that is not something she can afford, not right now.

“We’re not here to have some small talk,” Shaw reminds him with a certain degree of growing impatience. One that makes her step closer, gun still aiming ahead but now it’s pointing at his forehead.

“I just want to know if you plan on proceeding in a similar way or make it clean,” Elias clarifies, not in the least perturbed by her wordless threat. It’s the first time some fatherly worry shines through his voice.

Shaw can’t tell if it’s real or for show. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. “You know me,” is all she says. There is a dangerous lilt to it, a warning that doesn’t go past him without his notice.

Elias watches her for a few moments longer, before he accepts her words with a simple nod. “You will find him at the old warehouse complex, near the docks. I own several of the buildings there, so it will be well guarded,” he points out, almost like a challenge.

Shaw looks pointedly at all the dead guards around them and walks away without saying anything else to him.

*

It will only occur to her later that Scarface has not been among the dead guards and that in itself should’ve been a warning to her.

*

Shaw doesn’t wait around in the city and she also doesn’t go back to the hotel to wait there. Instead, she makes a trip to the suburbs. It’s a cold, sunny fall day and it’s a relaxing ride to the outer skirts of the city. She parks her car in her usual spot and gets out of the car, paper coffee cup in her hand, sunglasses back in place.

Mark Snow who is shooting some hoops with his son immediately spots her. He’s lost some more of his hair and looks even more serious. But he tells his kid to go inside and get something to drink for them while he steps away from his property and walks over to Shaw’s car underneath the large, old oak tree across from his boring four bedroom suburban house. “Shaw,” he greets her, stemming his arms against his hips. “What a surprise.”

“Is it really?” she asks back, sipping on her black coffee.

“No, I suppose not. You here for the usual?”

“Yeah,” she smiles.

“How many?”

“I feel like doing a threesome,” Shaw jokes, having three cars in mind.

To his credit, his humor hasn’t changed. He laughs. “Give me twenty minutes,” Snow asks for and walks back, just in time for his son to re-appear outside with two small water bottles in his hands. Snow is a weird fella—not really an active member in the community any longer, but not really retired as well. To get out—as best as he managed—he had to promise to remain a reliable supplier for explosives of all kind.

And here she is.

Almost thirty minutes later she’s on her way again, leaving son and father behind to throw some more balls.

She has an address and she knows more or less what to expect there. She assumes that Laskey and his mate that helped at the night of the break-in will be holed up in the same place. She’ll get two flies in one go. But to prevent from making the same mistake twice, she is going to trap them inside their safe house. She’ll make it impossible for them to escape her one more time.

Around lunch time, she arrives at the warehouses near the docks.

Shaw opens the trunk of her car, shoulders the black duffel bag filled with the three explosives that can be triggered remotely, and makes her way deeper into the property without being spotted.

First, she sneaks around the main warehouse, entering it by quietly taking out the guards posted at the back entrance. Then, armed with her duffel bag, she flits through the warehouse hangar where the three SUVs are parked. She almost smiles to herself that she’s guessed the amount of cars correctly. Two more guards have to be taken out, then she installs the explosives underneath the vehicles and leaves the same way she’s entered. Then, she picks one of the scattered snipers and reaches him by making use of as many blind spots in this area as she can.

These people have no training, no skill in protecting someone the right way.

She stabs the sniper with her knife in the neck from behind and then quickly takes over both the weapon and the headset. And then, she observes.

Laskey and his buddy are indeed together. Laskey looks like he hasn’t slept in a while and his buddy is busy playing some shooter with headphones on. Shaw moves on and keeps looking through the scope of her newly acquired sniper rifle to count the guards that have ranged weapons and could potentially be a problem.

Five.

Together with potentially five more guards inside the safe house.

Shaw takes a deep breath and starts aiming.

*

It almost feels too easy to pick them apart, one by one, until only Laskey remains. He runs from her, past the exploded and still burning cars and towards some empty containers that stand around at the back of the warehouse. But eventually he realizes that there is nowhere to run. He stops and turns around, facing her with slightly lifted hands. “It was just a car and a fucking—”

Shaw shoots him before he can insult Bear. She puts a bullet into his stomach and watches him stumble to the ground, holding his bleeding wound.

Laskey chances one last defiant look. “Fuck y—”

Shaw shoots him in the head.

She’s too busy basking in that feeling of brief triumph to hear Scarface approach her from behind, hitting that particular spot that makes her dive into darkness.

*

Shit.

*

When Shaw comes to it, Elias is in front of her, sitting on a chair in what she assumes to be one of his more expensive tailored suits. So, he had found the time to change before he deemed it fit to go and check if his son is still alive or not. They’re still at the warehouse, but the corpses are all gone and what remains are the containers and the burned cars.

“Sameen Shaw,” he quietly greets her, smiling. “Took you long enough to wake up.” Behind him is Scarface, watching her with a similar small smile.

She should’ve expected this, really. Scarface is known to be a stealthy, capable henchman and she simply allowed him to get the better of her. And now here she is, caught and trapped with no immediate way out. She tests her restraints around her ankles and her wrists that are tied to the back of the chair—and finds that she can barely move either. “You should’ve killed me before I woke up,” she replies, her voice scratchy.

“What are you going to do? Kill me with your glare? You know, my mistake was to see in you the same killer that you were before you retired for five years. You clearly have kept in shape and you haven’t forgotten everything, but the Sameen Shaw I paid to work for me wouldn’t have allowed herself to be surprised from behind. She wouldn’t have lost her good sense and started a war for a . . . small misstep.”

Shaw is fuming, but she doesn’t say anything. She simply stares at him, trying to contain her anger for now.

Elias smirks at her anyway. “I shouldn’t have treated you as _Baba Yaga_ of old when you clearly have lost some of your . . . bite. You’ve let yourself go and there is no shame in that, but I won’t pretend any longer that you are the same Sameen Shaw that can infiltrate a building through an air duct an kill all the guards in there in under five minutes. Who took out several of Yogorov’s men a few years ago with nothing but a shotgun and sheer will to survive.”

Shaw remains silent.

“Who knows, if I hadn’t seen you as more than you are, then maybe my son would be still alive. I’m just as much to blame for his death than you are. I made mistakes along the way, mistakes that I am now rectifying,” Elias goes on. The thing about him and his anger is that he doesn’t raise his voice or turn to vulgar language. His anger is cold, more precise than that, like a sharp knife. It gives him a certain level of razor sharp focus, makes him committed to get back at those that he feels have wronged him. The only reason he’s still talking to her and hasn’t given Scarface the order to slowly choke her to death is because he has something left to say.

She considers yawning, just to try and see how patient he really is.

“Not only did you kill my son for some silly mistake that could’ve been easily fixed, I mean—you clearly know how to get fast cars and I am sure you would’ve figured out how to get a new dog,” Elias continues to taunt her in a mock-thoughtful voice. He gets up from his chair. “Not only that, but you also burned down years worth of work, millions of dollars but also documents of immeasurable worth to me.” Elias fixes her with his cold eyes. “And for what? To blackmail me? To pretend that the name _Baba Yaga_ still suits you? My dear, every action has consequences.”

Shaw doesn’t laugh him into the face because she agrees with him. It’s why his useless son is now dead. To remind her that actions have consequences is like explaining to her how a gun works. Then again, it seems that Elias is more miffed about his burned stash of documents and money then his son’s death.

Father of the year, everybody.

“Goodbye, Shaw. It’s been an honor to have you as my opponent but you are no longer the feared lone wolf that escapes death like it’s your second nature. Maybe marrying that woman has . . . taken some of your bite away,” Elias chuckles and for some reason that’s the last straw.

“I let you live,” she quietly seethes, watching him stop in his movements and giving her a curious look, clearly surprised that out of all the things he’s just threw at her head, this is what got to her.

It isn’t.

But these idiots forgot to check her pockets properly and her phone buzzes. She can hide the noise by once more pulling at her restraints and make the wooden chair legs scrape over the concrete floor until a hand on her shoulder pulls her hard to stop her from moving. The noise her phone makes goes unnoticed and Shaw is busy trying to hide her glee about it.

The buzzing can only mean one thing.

Shaw doesn’t look around because that would be too obvious. But she is going to give him a good show. “I gave you your power and I can just as easily take it away. You think you’re some powerful name in the city but you only are _because I made you so!_ ” Shaw hisses, pulling at her restraints once more, just to really sell it. “You know why your son died? Because he took the last thing that made that house my home, days after my wife died. He stole my car, because he thought you owned the city. I had to kill him—no one kills my dog and steals my car to tell the tale. Not a few days after my wife’s funeral.”

Elias starts to laugh. He actually holds his stomach while he gets his laughter out, and then he takes his glasses off to wipe his eyes and clean the glasses. “Oh, Shaw. Your wife isn’t dead—but she also isn’t your wife. She was always just meant to distract you, and the fact that it worked, I mean. . .” He trails off and starts to laugh again. “I never thought it possible with someone like you, empty as you are, but it’s true what they say about this woman—she is the best at what she does. If I told you who she is, then you wouldn’t believe me.”

Shaw’s heartrate goes up but not because of anger. This time, she sees a chance. She just has to bait him right and then— “Oh yeah? Try me. It’s not like I believe any word you just said,” she bites out. She would rate her acting as convincing, no one in this room has any idea that she already knows who Root is.

Elias can’t resist to get one better on her, to prove her wrong.

And because of that he mindlessly breaks the contract he signed with his own blood not aware that the person he made that agreement with is watching that breach from the shadows, somewhere in this warehouse. “Her real name is Root. I’m sure you’ve heard that name many, many times. She’s not just any gifted hacker, she is probably the most gifted person in our world—one of the best con-artists you will ever meet. It’s why you fell for her act even though you are said to be . . . not feeling much,” Elias chuckles and finally gives a lazy hand wave in Scarface’s direction, a wordless order to take care of her—for good. Then he leaves, trusting his most loyal man to not fuck it up.

Scarface pulls out a plastic bag and his smile seems almost apologetic if it wasn’t for the gleeful glint in his dark eyes. Shaw trashes in her seat, tries to find a weak spot in her zip tie shackles but she can’t free herself before the bag is pulled over her head. She tries to hold her breath but quickly finds that her bruised ribs and her bullet wound that she’s stitched up days ago make it very painful to hold a lungful of breath. For a moment she wonders if she’s miscalculated, if she’s imagined the buzzing and there is no Root in the shadows, biding her time for the right moment to step in. She’s almost about to pass out when the pressure around her neck disappears and the plastic bag is ripped from her head, causing her chair to tip over and fall sideways to the ground.

Shaw feels dizzy and her vision is blurred at first, but she is no longer surrounded by Elias’ goons watching how Scarface gets the honor of killing her. She finds that three of them are dead on the ground and Scarface—

He’s on his knees in front of Root and receives his bullet in the head. She has two guns in her hand again and tucks them both away in the waistband of her tight dark skinny jeans. Then, she bends down and retrieves something from Scarface’s corpse—Shaw’s guns and her knife.

A moment later she’s at Shaw’s side and cuts through the zip ties with that knife. “Hey sweetie, miss me?” she asks jokingly, handing Shaw the knife and guns once she’s done.

“Yeah, I miss you like I miss an intestinal parasite,” Shaw coughs out, rolling her eyes. She hates that this reminds her of banter between her and—well, it’s all Root, in a way. Just the one that pretended to be her wife. Who keeps smudging the two people into one.

Ah, fuck.

Shaw takes a few seconds to crawl away from the chair and sit up, still feeling a little winded. “Thanks,” she says in a more serious tone, for the first time since Root started to annoy the shit out of her—but also saving her life while being at it. “You could’ve killed Elias instead of helping me. He broke the contract.” She meets Root’s dark eyes.

Root nods, still crouching in front of her. “I could’ve yes, but . . .” She hesitates and then briefly touches Shaw’s sweaty cheek. “You can always kill someone, but saving someone is a time sensitive kind of mission,” she points out and then helps Shaw stand.

Shaw feels warm. She makes a face and does a brief check-up on her health, and winces when she touches her side. Yeah, she’s ripped her stitches and is bleeding again. “Fuck,” she whispers, unhappy with how everything went down. And then she remembers Elias’ words and how he wants to correct some wrongs.

Cole.

“We need to go,” she gets out, angry at the mess she’s ended up in.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Root murmurs and pulls Shaw’s arm around her neck to support her weight and help her walk.

Shaw doesn’t make a biting comment about her being here, because in a way she’s tired of constantly focusing her anger on Root. Yes, she’d been lied to for five years and yes, her whole retirement thing has been rendered useless, since Root herself is part of this fucking underground crime world just elected not to mention it in all of those five years, but she finds that it’s hard to truly _hate_ her. Not like she hated Laskey. Not like she hates Elias.

Root is the annoying sidekick she’s got against her will but also doesn’t know how to get rid of. In a way, Elias had been correct—she is no longer the lone wolf of old.

And that’s a little terrifying.

Root seems fine with supporting her weight and doesn’t ask any questions or resorts to explain some insanely detailed story of something Shaw’s overlooked or hasn’t notice before. Instead, she simply helps her get in the passenger seat of Shaw’s Dodge Charger and hurries to the driver’s seat. Before she starts the engine she looks at Shaw and makes a concerned face. “How bad is it?” she asks.

“I can stitch it up. There should be a first aid kit somewhere,” Shaw grumbles and starts shuffling around in the glove compartment and underneath her seat. She finally has what she needs when Root is already speeding away from the warehouse. “You know where—"

“Cole lives?” Root finishes for her, giving her worried looks. Of course she’s heard that and has drawn the same conclusion as Shaw has. “Absolutely.” She smiles while lowering her head a little and it looks terrifying.

Shaw looks away, feeling . . . something. “Good.” Shaw is glad she doesn’t have to explain to Root what she needs to do and that Cole is in grave danger. She hisses in pain when she re-applies the stitches, careful not to fuck it up while inside a moving car. Then, with bloody fingers, she reaches for some fresh bandages and does a semi-professional job of covering it up. Then she buttons up her shirt and wishes she could change into some fresh clothes. She smells like old sea water, sweat and blood.

Root keeps throwing short glances at her.

“What?” Shaw finally asks, reloading her guns.

“We might be too late,” Root notes slowly. “He had quite the head start _and_ Claire Mahoney was not with him, meaning she was busy doing . . . something else,” she slowly points out, biting her lower lip.

“Yeah.” It’s not exactly a surprise for Shaw.

“I’m sorry.” Root touches Shaw’s hand as if it wasn’t bloody and squeezes once, just briefly. Then, her hand is gone and she is focused on driving again.

Shaw feels like jumping out of her skin. She leans into the seat and swallows hard. “Just drive,” she mumbles, frustrated with herself and her reaction to Root.

*

They find Cole’s lifeless body in his own hallway, all lights still turned on. Broken shards of glass litter the dark wood floorboards and someone helped themselves to a drink. One of the dining chairs is covered in blood and sweat—Cole had been tortured before Mahoney finished him. Other than that, the house looks untouched. At least they refrained from stealing Cole’s shit.

“Bitch,” Shaw says, closing Cole’s expressionless eyes. Mahoney is behind this and she’s certain that Elias briefly came here after being done with Shaw. Just to check if his last loyal henchman—or woman—has done the job correctly.

Shaw looks at Cole’s motionless body and feels mostly just anger at herself, at Cole for being infallible loyal to her, and at Elias for being such a colossal dick. It turns out his son was similar to him after all. It makes her grind her teeth together.

Root is standing behind her, clearly not sure what to do with herself. “I’m sorry, I had to choose.”

Shaw stands up again and finally looks at Root longer than just a brief glance. “This isn’t your fault, I fucked it up.” Technically, Cole has fucked it up for himself by firing a warning shot a few days ago, with Mahoney as witness. It’s a surprise it took Elias so long to give the order—then again, he had been busy trying to protect his son.

“I’m sure Finch will take care of Mahoney,” Root says into the settling silence between them. “Elias will be leaving his office now and heading to his chopper, eager to leave the city. There is nothing left for him in this city.”

Shaw doesn’t ask how she knows it. 

Outside, the telltale of a thunderstorm can be heard.

Shaw looks one last time at Cole’s pale, motionless face and makes a point not to count the many bullet holes in his body. “Let’s go.”

*

Finch gives her a call to confirm that yes, the Mahoney problem has been taken care of (she has broken the rules of the hotel after all) and confirms Root’s intel as correct: Elias is truly attempting to escape the city, to run and hide from her. He must know by now that his favorite didn’t make it.

Shaw, driving herself again, ends the call and speeds up.

Root’s smile shines in the red light Shaw runs over.

*

It’s not some epic show down, although Shaw kind of hoped for one. Elias’ SUV is easily stopped and the other two vehicles don’t pose a serious threat. “Stay in the car,” Shaw bites out towards a little out of breath. Root who, true to her words a day ago, hasn’t even reached for her guns to try and get in her way of finishing this by herself. Root makes a point to show how the destroyed passenger door can’t be opened because the repeated ramming into SUVs has dented the doors in a way that makes it impossible to move them properly. Then she’s actually starting to check her hair in the compact mirror of the passenger’s sun visor, as if this is just a short pit stop before they have somewhere important to be.

Shaw feels ridiculously fond of her in that moment.

“Whatever,” Shaw tells more to herself than to Root, ignoring the flutter of something in her chest and turns around to face the last man standing.

Carl Elias.

He is breathing hard and completely soaked from the streaming rain, falling down hard on them.

Armed with her P30L, Shaw walks up to him and ignores the rain soaking her beaten up suit. She squints against the rain droplets landing on her face and stops a few feet away from Elias.

“And now what, Shaw?” Elias asks, groaning a little when he rolls his shoulder. Shaw has done a number on the car he’s been sitting in and apparently his shoulder has taken a hit. He must’ve been seated at the window in the backseat, then.

Shaw smiles. “Now, I’m going to finish it.”

“Or, we could fight without guns and see who comes up top. Just you and me, and some honest hand to hand c—”

Shaw shoots him before he can finish. She aims at his chest first, just to see the surprise enter his widening eyes and then she puts two more bullets into his head. Just to be sure. Just to complete the poetic justice and make the father die like his son. Her narrow tie is fluttering in the strong wind and she attempts to wipe some of the rainwater out of her face. Doesn’t really do much.

She’s completely drenched by the time she’s done putting her gun away. A lightning flashes over the sky, followed by a deep rolling thunder. She wipes some loose strands of hair out of her face that escaped her knot at the back of her head and starts to move towards her car.

She climbs into her half-destroyed Dodge Charger and drums on the wheel before looking at Root again. The leather squeaks underneath her wet clothes when she adjusts her posture. “I’m going back to the Continental.” It’s not really a question, more like an . . . offer. She only looks at Root when no immediate answer comes.

Root shrugs, the open zipper of her black leather jacket clattering against her belt. “I heard they just got rid of some cockroaches there,” she finally smiles, tilting her head back. In that moment she looks so much like the woman Shaw has thought to have known well enough to get married to that it makes her pause for a second. It keeps happening and yet, she can’t get used to it. 

She rolls her eyes and pretends to be annoyed by Root’s lame joke. She turns on the engine and drives away from the destroyed cars and the dead bodies lying around.

It’s finally over.

*

“Welcome back, Shaw,” Reese greets her, ignoring her soaked appearance. She must look like a drowned cat. “Miss Turing,” he adds when he spots Root behind her.

Shaw discreetly glances over her shoulder. Turing? She rolls her eyes at that and makes sure that Root sees it, which she does and all she gets as a reply is a failed wink.

Shaw looks away, mad at how it makes her feel. So Root didn’t pretend not to be able to wink during their marriage, that’s been real all these years. She hates to know this and to feel the same tightening in her lower stomach as earlier. “Is my room still free?” she asks, hoping that she doesn’t sound distracted.

Reese looks at his screen as if he didn’t know the answer. He just knows how his pretense to work at a glacial pace is driving her up the walls and she wonders for a brief moment why Finch is insisting on Reese being the head of Continental’s reception. “Indeed it still is, yes. Do you require . . . some dry cleaning done?” Reese politely asks, quirking a brow at her.

“Goodnight, Reese,” Shaw huffs at him in annoyance and quickly moves to the elevators, Root never far behind. She ignores the quick glances people throw her way when they notice the state her clothes are in and pushes the button to call the elevator. Maybe the people are also staring at Root—she is certainly not helping by standing so close to her, all without talking. No one in their right mind would invade her comfort zone like that, Shaw’s too feared for that.

It’s a very subtle, very quiet way of annoying Shaw and she hates that she still notices it and fumes over it.

It doesn’t get better once they’re inside. Root briefly looks at her only to look away again with a silly little smile on her lips. “Funny how Reese never asked me if I needed a room here as well,” Root points out, perfectly timed with the _ping!_ of the elevator stopping.

Shaw blinks.

She is going to kill him.

But first, she needs to get out of these wet clothes.

Root bumps her shoulder against hers. “I do yours, if you do mine,” she says, and apparently Shaw has said her thoughts out loud. It’d be mortifying if Root’s lame line didn’t zip through Shaw’s body like a small electric shock.

She shivers. Stops in front of her door. And hesitates to take her key card out. “Is there any more secrets I have to know about?” Shaw asks in a soft voice. They are still in the hallway, anyone could walk in on them, she doesn’t want the wrong ears to hear a thing. They should probably get inside the room, but Shaw is pretty certain that they won’t do much talking in there.

Root leans in and has a similar idea. “Pleasure before business,” she whispers.

“That’s not how the saying—”

Root’s lips are on hers before she can finish her very half-hearted protest. Her hands grab Root by her unzipped leather jacket and pull her closer. Root’s hands are on her face and they both gasp into the kiss, until Root’s back hits her still closed hotel door. Her hands let go of the jacket to disappear beneath her shirt, and while the woman in front of her is mostly still a stranger, her body is not—a very weird concept.

They break apart to get some air. “I missed this,” Root sighs against her lips, smiling. She leans her forehead against Shaw’s and her thumb beneath Shaw’s wound on her temple keeps rubbing small circles on her skin. “I’m sorry I lied to you and faked my death,” she says, obviously sitting on these words for some days now.

Shaw huffs. Albeit a little distracted now, she knows that Root has yet to actually answer the her question—her deflection is not lost on her. And a part of her can already see how she is going to regret her decision to just close her eyes and let it happen, but after they harrowing days she’s had she needs a break—including from being mad at Root.

So, she reaches past her to scan her key car and unlocks the hotel door, slowly pushing Root inside—it’s a wordless acceptance of Root’s apology and Root’s answering smile tells her that she gets it.

Shaw kicks the door closed and takes a deep breath, watching Root in front of her. There is a pause between them. Something folds in Shaw’s chest and she decides to follow Root’s stupid advice. She starts to take of her tie and moves towards the bathroom. When she drops her suit jacket, Root is already right behind her, her own jacket is on the ground somewhere near her tie. It’s all the invitation she needed, apparently. She turns on the lights in the ensuite bathroom and takes off her belt. She can feel how the tension from the past few days start to melt away from her when Root’s lips meet the back of her neck and her hands start to pull at her shirt. With nimble fingers she unbuttons it and turns Shaw around, both standing in front of the large bathroom mirror . . . and Shaw pauses at her own reflection.

Dark bruises, her stitched up gun wound that is still an angry red, and several small cuts litter her body. The area over her ribs looks particularly nasty and she winces when she touches it with careful movements. 

“Poor baby,” Root coos, the term of endearment one of the few remaining remnants from their fraudulent marriage. “I will be very careful,” she says with a promising smile and their eyes meet in the mirror.

And Shaw?

Closes her eyes and allows herself to just forget everything around her for one night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as i did while writing it. i don't know when i will start working on the next part, because first i want to finish my other poi fic. soon, though!


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